The Gift of Truth
by IncandescentOne
Summary: Instead of rushing off after Deidara Naruto ends up fighting Sasori. Sasori sets Naruto off on the path toward becoming a true Ninja.
1. Chapter 1

The gift of Truth.

I was reading FF's, as I do when I can't be bothered to do anything else and I came upon a fic called '**Consequences of an Honest Enemy**' and it captured my imagination, as they say. I have asked for permission to post this, I hope to take it in a different direction.

Story Recommendations:

I would like anyone reading this to look up **Consequences of an Honest Enemy** and also **Rogue Fox**. Newly my favourite fanfiction out there, overtaking People Lie because that died, but is being reborn... *Crowd goes 'Woo'* Nugar Ruelz! (look up People Lie too.)

---)(---

In a cave, in the depths of the vast deserts of the country of Wind two men stood over the corpse of Sabaku no Gaara. Their black cloaks, adorned with clouds blended into the gloom of the cave.

Having just entered the Cave were three Konoha Ninja and one of the Elders of the Village hidden in the Sand. They had come to rescue Gaara but were too late, he was dead.

Uzumaki Naruto stared in horror at the still form of his friend, He wanted desperately to run over there and do something to save him, but he knew that he could do nothing to save him and he barely restrained his impulse to charge in, knowing that against such enemies it was generally a bad idea.

He looked meaningfully to the commander of their Cell, Hatake Kakashi. The man knew what Naruto wanted but he was at a loss, The Leaf had no intel on either of the criminals before them so he couldn't be sure who was best against who until suddenly the blond of the two created a giant bird and flew off with Gaara. Quickly he acted, knowing Naruto would want to charge off and retrieve his friend's body. "Naruto!"

Naruto stopped just as he was about to leap after the escapee. "You stay here, you're not suited to fight an aerial opponent. Don't worry, Sakura and I will retrieve Gaara."

Naruto struggled with his emotions for a moment before conceding. "Okay."

Without further ado Kakashi and their third teammate Haruno Sakura departed the cave in pursuit of the blond criminal and the body of the Wind Shadow, Gaara.

Now left alone Naruto focused his ire on the bulbous, hunched form of their opponent, who finally deemed fit to speak. "You're still alive I see, Grandma."

The old lady stiffened at his address. "You know this guy?" He scrutinised the two. "What's wrong with him anyway?"

The old lady, reunited with her grandson after twenty years cursed being left with the idiot of the team. "That is not his real appearance, it is a puppet shell. It has many traps and functions, if it even nicks your skin you will die from poisoning."

Naruto regarded the stoic puppet warily. "Poison..." He trailed off, feigning fright. The old lady suddenly burst into action, releasing a volley of knives from a cord and controlling their trajectory with movements of her finger tips.

Though he wasn't the brightest of people, Naruto connected her mention of puppets and the motions of her fingers to ascertain she was using some sort of puppetry technique. That meant she was a long-range fighter. Long range fighters worked best in conjunction with short-range fighters.

Naruto grinned ferally while making a cross sign with his hands. "Shadow Clone."

Twenty copies of him rushed forward, fanning out to surround their opponent. He left a clone in his position and entered the fray, expecting his enemy to assume he himself had stayed back.

The old lady's eyes widened, new plans forming in her mind with this new information on his abilities. "Boy, that Chakra Ball you used, If you hit Hiruko with that it will certainly destroy it."

None of the Naruto's answered but they all got the message.

Sasori's completely ignored the knives flying at him, merely shifting the position of his puppet so they hit armour rather than joints. The puppet's tail shot out a great metallic tip moving with undue speed flashed around his form, destroying clones left and right as they came in for attacks.

"Foolish, I see through your ploy." He announced as a hail of poisoned needles were launched towards the clone Naruto had left in his place.

As the clone was hit its form remained for a moment, shock etched on its features. Naruto smirked and quickly powered a Rasengan, before the clone exploded. As he had expected the Tail had stopped swinging, Sasori expected the clones to falter with the death of their 'master'. Naruto's attack struck true at the side of Sasori's puppet but before it had even reached a single needle was launched straight into his chest from beneath the red cloak.

As Naruto falterd and his clones exploded into nothing, his control over the Rasengan faltered also, the energy exploding outwards, shredding the puppet.

Naruto staggered for a few moments before falling to his knees. What looked like a teenager appeared unscathed from the wreckage of the destroyed puppet. "As I said, I saw through your ploy." He glanced apathetically at the remains of Hiruko. "I did not expect that you could so completely destroy Hiruko however, I should have heeded granny's words."

He turned from the prone Naruto to the dumbstruck old lady. "You haven't aged a day since you left, twenty years ago. Have you even a shred of your humanity left, Sasori?"

Sasori shrugged and eyed Naruto for a moment. "He bears the marks of fox possession, is this the Host of the Nine Tails? My poison will not kill him for a while, time for us to settle our family dispute, no?"

Chiyo grimmaced and unsealed two puppets, readying herself for battle. "Do you remember these puppets, Sasori?"

His reply was cut off by a coughing sound from Naruto's position. They turned their attention to him, both aware of the effects of Sasori's poison, one being paralysis. They watched in stunned silence as he struggled to his knees, his eyes glowing faintly red, once up he began heaving until he coughed up a black substance.

Seemingly relieved at its expulsion, Naruto sat back, his eyes slowly fading back to their deep crystalline blue. "Damn, that's the worst poison I've ever had. Normally I just feel a bit sick."

They were both dumbstruck, neither having ever seen someone apparently survive Sasori's poisons.

Sasori was first to recover, connecting the red eyes with his theory that the boy was the Host of the Nine Tails. Quickly coming to the conclusion that his poison would not be enough to defeat this boy, regardless of dose Sasori dismissed his plans to play around with his grandmother and planned to battle his fullest. In mere moments he revealed a scroll and summoned a hundred puppets, quickly connecting himself with all of them through countless strings of Chakra, he also unsealed a single puppet which he directed at his grandmother.

"The Third Wind Shadow! It was you!" Sasori Ignored her, planning to deal with her once Naruto was incapacitated.

The puppet which was apparently made from the deceased Third Wind Shadow, advanced towards the old woman rapidly, streams of black sand began to flow from its body towards her. Quickly she retreated, dodging out of the way of the sand, keeping her puppets from being infected with it, as she knew it could easily disable them. She paused warily when the tendrils stopped their advance until too late she understood why. They began to expand, forming a barrier, she had been herded to the entrance of the cave and was trapped outside.

Deciding that breaking the barrier was too risky as Sasori could easily just attack her with the sand again, she decided to attempt to make her way around to the top of the cave where the blond criminal had escaped through.

Inside Naruto decided the daunted feeling he was experiencing was probably what a lot of his enemies felt when they fought him. Well, he hoped it was. "That's a lot of puppets, what? A hundred?"

Sasori indulged in banter, though at the same time he was preparing the various mechanisms on his puppets to be triggered. "Indeed, I once conquered a country with this."

Naruto's eyebrow rose. "A country? Seriously?"

Now prepared, Sasori ignored him and the entire army of puppets charged, dodging between each other as they fanned out.

"Crap! What happened to the conversation?!" He put his hands together again, two hundred Shadow Clones of himself burst into existence around him. Immediately they all charged. Naruto noticed that though outnumbered two to one the puppets were destroying his clones far more easily than they were being destroyed themselves. Rather than entering the fray as he usually would he stood as composed as he could manage.

Almost three years spent with one of the strongest Ninja known to the elemental nations and all they had done was physical training and various attempts at drawing on the power of the Kyuubi. The former only being included as Jiraiya had thought it would help with the second, an educated guess at best since he really had no knowledge or experience with drawing or utilising demonic Chakra. Naruto didn't think it helped at all, though his Shadow Clones certainly were more effective as a result.

After all that time Naruto had no more control over the Youki and its effects on his mentality than when he was younger, he merely was able to draw out more, something which scared him more than anything. One benefit was that he could more easily tap into that vast store of power to replenish his own sizeable reserves.

So while the two armies clashed, Sasori guided his puppets with skill and finesse greater than any puppeteer before him and Naruto centred himself while carefully siphoning the energies of the Nine Tails and pushing it straight into the Shadow Clone technique.

As a result, hoardes more Narutos came into existence around him, their appearance more feral than the original and their demeanour more violent, but that was okay, since violence was the aim of the game.

At first Sasori had been confident. He knew of the Shadow Clone technique, though he avoided it himself due to the ridiculous energy costs, something he had relatively low amounts of. His puppets had been cutting down the clones rapidly, taking minor damage. As part of an organisation devoted to capturing the Tailed beasts and their hosts, he knew that a host would gain improved Chakra reserves. He had been surprised when Naruto had summoned so many clones, that would cost more Chakra than even Kisame had, a man sometimes referred to as a Tailed Beast without a tail.

His confidence evaporated however when he felt a surge of evil energy and another wave of blonde clones joined the fray, each sporting more feral features, it was easy to deduce they were a product of the Beast's energies.

Deciding to try and bide for time to make a plan, he could bring his Third Wind Shadow puppet into play but that might merely cause the boy to make more clones, he would need the advantage of surprise it could give to whatever plan he may come up with.

"An impressive technique, boy. It seems Jiraiya has prepared you well to fight me. I should expect nothing less of a fellow spy master."

Naruto's concentration faltered momentarily. "What do you mean?"

"I mean to counter my puppet army with your own veritable army, I had thought my puppet army still a secret." Sasori decided he would need to use his own body, to utilize the Chakra expensive Elemental Technique mechanisms, to do so he would need to get closer and then use the Wind Shadow to create a surprise and hopefully corner the boy. He began making his puppets jump higher to conceal his own forward movements. He removed the head of his puppet body and left it in his position, so his voice would emanate from there. "No Host that we have encountered yet has utilised their Beast's energy in such a way, they have all either used elemental attacks based on the Beast's nature or they have shrouded themselves and attacked in that form."

Naruto was wary of a trap, earlier the puppeteer hadn't been interested in talking, so he figured it was a diversion. He sent some of his clones to throw others up, and report back anything suspicious. But he kept up the conversation too. "He didn't, it's something I adapted myself, He's spent almost three years trying to teach me to draw and control it's Chakra."

Sasori frowned, even though his frown was some distance now from his main body. "You are lucky then, I am rather adept at seals and am prepared to disrupt such a form of attack." Sasori was cut off by a yell coming from above the battle field.

"His head's on its own on the floor! His body must be in there!" It pointed then dispelled. Sasori wondered at that, why bother announcing such intel when it would return to him anyway upon dispelling, unless he didn't know it could do so? Sasori decided it wouldn't be in his best interests to let his opponent know such. He had made it halfway through the fray, using his best puppets to keep his main body protected, he still needed to buy time. His army would easily last long enough at this rate. He begun moving the Wind Shadow puppet into position, ready.

Sasori continued to fish for information. "In three years Jiraiya has taught you nothing of use then?"

Naruto paused, he couldn't see the harm in bashing Jiraiya to someone, he had been frustrated by the approach and it felt gratifying that someone agreed, even if it was an enemy it was a powerful enemy. "Pretty much. He taught me summoning and the Rasengan but that was all before we left the Leaf village. I've gotten better at the Rasengan but even that is partially due to experimenting with the Nine Tails energies."

Sasori pondered that Naruto was unusually forthcoming with his combat abilities, he made a mental note to watch for the signs of a summoning and to react accordingly. The Rasengan he could do little but avoid. It was lucky the army of clones wasn't utilizing it as an attack, he wouldn't last long against that. He decided not to tempt fate by mentioning it. "In our studies we have found hosts can only reliably control the energies of their Beast with the Beast's consent, knowing of its nature I doubt you could come to an accord with the Nine Tails. A better approach would have been to develop the technique you currently utilize and expand the variety of techniques you can employ with it." Sasori was nearly there, he would strike mid-sentence as that was likely to catch his opponent further off guard. "Of course it is always beneficial to train the body, physical strength leads to Chakra strength and the ability to-"

At once he had the Wind Shadow puppet launch all of its sand at Naruto, spikes of iron sand splintered all around him, preventing movement from where he was lest he be skewered. Once they surrounded him they all begun to converge. Eyes closed, Naruto didn't notice the attack and the newest wave of clones was all but obliterated by the sand onslaught. Sasori's main body simultaneously launched its harpoon from its torso, a jet of fire to blanket Naruto's position and a jet of water straight for him, all in sync with the Black Sand attack and operating his army of puppets. As the fire cleared and the smoke faded, the poison on most of his black sand having been burnt off, Sasori recovered from the mental stress of doing so many things at once and the exhaustion from his Chakra expenditure, he waited in anticipation for Naruto's clones to dispel.

He was not disappointed, he spied the boy on the floor, mildly charred and bleeding, clutching his side whilst around him clones began dispersing bit by bit.

His relief was short lived however as his main body was suddenly torn asunder, his heart piece going flying from its protective shell. The clones continued their attack, decimating the now lifeless puppets. Sasori knew he was defeated, he could not operate his army without his connection to his puppet body, though he could still operate what was left of that puppet itself.

"Wait!" his voice echoed across the cave from where he left his head. His heart piece was damaged, he would soon perish from blood loss, with nothing left Sasori decided he would leave a legacy behind, as well as hopefully exacting some vengeance against the organisation which led him to ruin.

Naruto stopped short of attacking the tube of flesh which had flown from the puppet, clearly the only part of it which possessed Chakra. He stayed ready, surrounding himself with clones. Across the cave his clones stood over broken or simply lifeless puppets, ready to retaliate if they moved.

"Outside my body, I can no longer operate my army, nor anything but my head, since the rest of it is destroyed." Naruto stayed on guard. "I would like to make a deal with you."

"What kind of deal?" Naruto asked, warily.

"My organisation, Red Dawn, has led me to ruin rather than the power promised. Were I to help you and you defeated them, I would consider it vengeance for myself as well."

"Help me? Why should I trust you? This could be a trick."

Sasori went to nod but his head merely fell over. "Do not worry, I will soon die of blood loss, I mean merely to give you information. Information is a Ninja's greatest asset, after all."

"What kind of information?"

Sasori continued on, ignoring the question. "I would also ask that you kill Orochimaru."

"Orochimaru?"

"Yes, he was once my partner in the organisation. Even missing a hand he cost me some of my favourite puppets in his escape."

"Okay, I can live with that. Anything else?"

"I would like it if you take up my art, become a puppeteer, or at least find someone suitable and lead them down the path."

"How am I going to do that? You said you were dying."

"I have prepared for this eventuality. I have left documentation on all of my techniques in detail as well as information on each of the members of my organisation and potential techniques I could not utilise, for various reasons. I also have a large store of poisoned weapons and poison, you have rather depleted my store of puppets however, that is now your problem."

"Uh, okay. Learn from your notes, got it. Where is all this stuff anyway?"

"It is all stored within the scroll laying near my head, which had contained my army." As Naruto went to investigate Sasori stopped him. "Wait, I have not much time and I have more to say."

"Okay."

"Your teachers: Jiraiya, from what you have said and Kakashi from my own investigations, it is clear they have neglected you severely. You have essentially reached this level on your own."

Naruto interrupted. "But they've taught me stuff, like..." But Sasori stopped him.

"They have taught you little but a few techniques, they have not taught you beyond that, not their applications, they have not helped you learn proper strategy, Chakra control, Elemental manipulation, there are many glaring holes in your skills as a Ninja, it is obvious you are mostly self taught. I too am mostly self-taught, and yet you defeated me. For that, you have my respect. I hope you will take this truth and learn from it and one day, if you defeat all your enemies, I would like you to announce me as your true teacher, but only if you believe it so."

"Uh, I guess I'll consider it, got a long way to go before then."

"Good. One thing I lacked as a Ninja was Chakra, I had many ideas I could not implement due to my lack thereof. Chakra is one thing you do have, almost endlessly. I would say that if I was capable of wielding an army of samurai, you can be capable of wielding an army of Ninja."

Naruto blinked. "Wow, really? Like, loads of Kakashi's?!"

"Indeed. Though not possessing his stolen blood inheritance."

"Huh?"

"Without his Sharingan eye."

"Oh..."

"Firstly, Did you know your Clones are capable of information transfer upon dispersion?"

"Huh?"

"When they dispel, any new information can be transferred back to you if the clone deems it important."

"Wow, really?"

"Yes that is their most basic function rather than as a combat technique. I would suggest you use your clones to train with Chakra techniques, specifically control techniques and elemental manipulation. I doubt they will be very useful in technique creation unless you are making something destructive."

"Right, got it!"

"Also, Itachi was capable of causing his clones to explode at will, I strongly suggest you replicate this technique."

"Wow, that would be awesome!"

"Finally, my greatest ambition as a child had be to wield puppets through which I channelled elemental chakra, making them similar in effectiveness to a melee focused ninja doing the same."

"Uh, Melee?"

"Hand to hand or short range weaponry."

"Oh."

"This is what led me to making human puppets, as I did not possess the Chakra capacity on my own to do this, I compensated using the Chakra of my dead enemies."

"Eugh..."

"I became proficient in medical and sealing techniques, required to create human puppets, though I never learned elemental manipulation, so you will need to seek that information from another source. Do with my puppets as you will, I have one final request."

"Yes?"

"I would have you bury my heart where it lies and my head with it before you leave."

Naruto nodded solemnly. "Okay, Master Sasori."

Sasori's head smiled from its sideways position on the floor. "Thank you, my only student."

Once he buried Sasori as requested, Naruto retrieved the scroll Sasori mentioned. He had some of his clones begin searching through the cave for un-damaged puppets while he went to where the puppet of the Third Wind Shadow lay. He thought for a while and decided that it belonged to Suna, so he sealed it in a separate scroll for them. He also scavenged what pieces he could find of Sasori's puppet body and sealed those into a different scroll as proof, he had not marked where he buried Sasori so he hoped they wouldn't find him if they came to scavenge. He left the iron sand where it lay, they could get it if they wanted, he didn't know how to seal things as a group and he was NOT sealing it all piece by piece.

As he left the cave he spied a group of people on the floor in the distance. He stowed Sasori's scroll safely away and left to see what he had missed.

He arrived to find Gaara now alive and the old woman who hadn't really done much in his battle dead. Everyone was looking solemnly at her corpse except Kakashi who looked exhausted.

"Hey guys, what'd I miss?"

Everyone turned to him, having not noticed his approach apparently. Sakura was the most obvious in her surprise. "Naruto! You're alive! Chiyo said you were almost certainly dead, trapped in that cave with that guy." She ran to him and hugged him, a few tears falling down her cheeks.

"Aha, no worries Sakura, he could only use a hundred puppets at a time, they were pretty strong but a few hundred clones took them out."

Sakura stepped back and punched him on the shoulder lightly. "Idiot. So what happened when you trashed his puppets, did he run off?"

Naruto glared at her for just assuming he didn't win for no reason, especially with the knowledge that he had gained the upper hand. "No, Sakura. I killed him."

Sakura was stunned for a moment. Gaara was still groggy from having been dead not long before so Kakashi decided to comment. "Well done Naruto. I knew you had it in you."

Naruto turned his glare on Kakashi, Sasori's criticisms still fresh in his mind. "You did, did you? Funny, I didn't use the tree walking exercise once in that fight so I don't know why you look so smug."

Kakashi didn't look smug but was smiling, though that didn't last long once Naruto responded.

Sakura swung for him though he dodged it, his adrenalin still pumping from the fight. He felt his anger quickly dissipating, even though he had no reason to not be angry still. "What the hell are you on about? Kakashi was trying to be nice, he's injured you know, and what does tree walking have to do with anything?"

Naruto stared at her for a moment before rounding on Kakashi again. "You taught her other stuff too? You didn't just practice favouritism you specifically neglected me!"

Kakashi looked away and didn't respond. Sakura gaped at him for a moment. "Master Kakashi, is that true?" No response.

Naruto noticed a dust cloud rapidly approaching their position he easily discerned that it was one or more of team Gai homing in on their position. He quickly decided he didn't want to get wrapped up in their enthusiasm at the moment and thought of a way out. "Hey Gaara, you look pretty tired, fancy a lift back to your village?"

Gaara felt he would be able to travel on his own soon but noticed that Naruto felt uncomfortable so allowed it. "That would be acceptable."

Naruto grinned, he quickly hefted Gaara onto his back and set off. Naruto didn't speak for a while so Gaara spoke. "My village is a little further to your left."

"Oh, thanks." Naruto adjusted his run. "I'm sorry about running off like that, but I just wanted to get away."

"I understand."

"Hey Gaara, I got you a present." Gaara did not respond. "Eh, don't you want it?"

"That would depend."

Naruto exclaimed. "Gah, you're no fun." He dug out two scrolls, waved them so Gaara could see over his shoulder before putting them back. "Sasori of the red sands and the Third Wind Shadow, though they're both puppets now."

"You defeated Sasori? And he had made a puppet of our Third Wind Shadow?"

Naruto grinned. "Yup."

"You never cease to amaze me."

"Heh thanks."

There was a pause before Gaara spoke again. "If you apply the surface climbing technique to the sand as your foot connects, it can cause the sand to clump, making a good surface to walk on. You must release the Chakra when you push off lest the sand go with it."

"Oh, uh, thanks, Gaara."

The rest of their trip to the Village Hidden in the Sand was spent with Naruto slowly learning how to sand walk.

---)(---

When they returned there was a big celebration for Gaara being alive as well as for Sasori being dead. Naruto received special praise for this as well as retrieving the Third Wind Shadow's desecrated body for them.

There was a large funeral held in honour of the Elder Chiyo, who gave her life in exchange for Gaara's. Both team seven and team Gai stayed the night in the village before heading back the next day. The teams all stayed in paid for hotel rooms except for Naruto who was invited to stay with Gaara and his siblings for the night.

Naruto managed to avoid being alone with his team the entire day, entirely unprepared to deal with the consequences of his earlier outburst.

When he, Gaara, Temari and Kankurou returned to their residence a servant had already prepared a meal, including a portion for Naruto. At first it was a solemn affair as they had just left the Elder Chiyo's funeral. After a while however Kankurou couldn't hold it in.

"How, how did you do it? Sasori wasn't just an S class Ninja but he defeated the Third Wind Shadow in his prime when he was what, Fifteen?

Naruto smiled, eager to boast about how great he was, even though he was more and more conscious of his flaws. He really was lucky, as Sasori had said. "Eh well he had like a hundred puppets and he could control them all at once, as well as the puppet of the Third, but he used that to drive Chiyo off, so it was me versus a hundred puppets!"

Everyone had stopped eating in anticipation, to Temari and Kankurou who had no real knowledge of how Naruto fought, this sounded like impossible odds. "Well, it was a little unfair on my side because he got me before that with his poison when I broke his shell puppet, what was it called, Hiroko?"

"Hiruko." Kankurou supplied helpfully.

"Yea, that. Well poisons don't work too well on me, I guess it's because the Fox's energy is so toxic, i'm immune? Or maybe it doesn't like competition so gets rid of poisons? But anyway he had to beat me properly rather than poison me so he got out this army of puppets!"

Kankurou snapped. "Yes, but how did you beat them?!"

"Ah well, I figured that if he had a hundred puppets then two hundred Naruto's would work just fine against him." Both Temari stared blankly at him for a while, Gaara merely resumed eating. "Eh well, I know this technique called the Shadow Clone, so I made loads of them."

"Wait." Temari interrupted. "I know of that technique, doesn't it take a ridiculous amount of Chakra to use? How can you use two hundred?"

"Ah well, I have a ridiculous amount of Chakra, so it works out fine. But the puppets were really ripping through the clones, so I had to improvise, I channeled the fox's energy gently into the Shadow Clone technique and kept sending in waves of clones."

"Eh, you can do that?" Kankurou interrupted.

"Apparently, Sasori said I was the only Host who did it though, he was talking to buy time for his surprise attack, but I saw through that ploy, hah."

"What surprise attack?!"

"Eh well, as he was talking he left his head where he had been and moved his..."

"He did what?!"

"He was a puppet, so he left the head which made his speech where he was so I wouldn't think he moved and sent his body forwards for a surprise attack."

"Oh... of course."

Naruto nodded, oblivious to their shock. "But I became suspicious when he started talking since before he wasn't interested in talking, so I sent some clones into the air to scout and they saw his head, so I knew something was happening. So I hid underground and left a clone. I stayed there and kept making clones appear above ground so he thought the clone was me." Naruto paused for the genius of his ploy to sink in. "When he attacked, whoo, he got that iron sand to pin my clone in and he blasted it with fire and some weird water jet. I made a clone up above which Transformed into an injured and bleeding me and dispelled some of the others bit by bit. I sensed the Chakra use and moved to underneath him then burst up underneath him with a Rasengan, POW!" Naruto slapped the table, making Temari and Kankurou jump. "Nailed him!"

Naruto skipped out on the part where Sasori betrayed the Red Dawn and left Naruto his teachings, which Naruto had yet to look at. He did remember the things Sasori had said to him though, one had been that Information was the most important thing to Ninja, he could see that now. Kankurou happened to be a puppeteer, not to mention the rest of the puppeteers in the Sand, what would they do if they knew he had what had to be a gold mine of puppeteering knowledge in his jacket pocket rolled up nicely? Probably bad things for him.

They finished the meal soon after Naruto's dramatic retelling of his battle. He excused himself saying he was tired, though really he wanted to get a look at what Sasori had given him. Gaara followed him to the door of his room though, obviously wanting to discuss something in private.

"Thank you, Naruto, for your rescue."

Naruto decided not to mention how unsuccessful they had been. "Eh well you know, we gotta stick together, right?"

Gaara nodded. "Indeed." He paused for a moment before continuing, almost seeming unsure, though Gaara was never unsure. "I have one more request."

"Yeah?"

"I would like you consider making romantic advances towards my sister."

Naruto stared at him blankly for a few moments until comprehension began to dawn. "Wait, you want me to..."

"I believe she would be receptive, I can think of no one more suitable."

Naruto floundered for an excuse of some sort so as to not offend Gaara. "Ah, I, But..."

"I merely ask that you consider it, I believe she would make a better spouse than your pink haired team mate for instance, the one who is violent to you still, even though she owes you her life."

Naruto was about to defend Sakura but he had faced enough disillusionment that day that he couldn't summon the blind faith to do so. "Uh, yeah, I'll think about it."

Gaara nodded and walked off.

Naruto quickly entered his room for the night and locked the door. First thing first, he made two clones and turned away while they played rock paper scissors. The match went to Naruto, scissors beating paper. The clones dispelled and immediately Naruto burst out into joy. "Yes! Scissors beats Paper, sucker!"

Now more confident in the things Sasori had told him he set got out the scroll and unsealed everything text based. There were journals of spy activity, recipies for poisons and antidotes, teachings on seals, spy making with seals, medicine, medical chakra techniques, chakra strings, chakra in general, puppet use, puppet making, human puppet making, ideas and projects and something called an upgraded bingo book.

Oblivious to any ramifications Naruto made a clone per text and sat down personally with the upgraded bingo book. It was larger than any he had seen before, upon closer inspection it seemed to only contain A and S ranked ninja, along with detailed dossiers on each including detailed strategies for combat against them. Naruto skipped through it, looking at who it contained. At the end was a section which really caught his attention, it started with Gaara, then some blonde girl from the Village Hidden in the Clouds, then a big three tailed turtle, it was all the hosts and Tailed Beats!

Naruto skipped a few pages to his own entry, he was sorely disappointed. Sasori knew of his Shadow clone technique, though had written it off as overly chakra intensive and the Rasengan was written off as easily avoided due to Naruto's low physical speed. It then detailed a method of applying a seal, referencing a page in the sealing text, which would suppress the Nine Tails' energies should they emerge.

Naruto sighed. It had worked out in his favour, if Sasori had known more about him he would likely be dead or captured, soon to be dead.

There were more pages after that, a quick look revealed a detailed dossier on other members of the Red Dawn. Naruto eagerly began reading. He would have to give this to Tsunade, it was too valuable to not do so. He would have to come up with a cover story of some sort, perhaps one of his clones would read something that would help. He continued reading, awed at the abilities of each of the members, how in the hell was he supposed to beat these people? Well, at least he would be prepared, as Sasori said, Information was the most important thing.

When he reached Itachi he was shocked, the three Elders had ordered Itachi to kill his clan, they were why Sasuke had run off! "Oh my god!" His clones stopped what they were doing and looked at him. "The elders made Itachi kill his clan!" A clone looked over his shoulder in curiosity. "Ahh." Naruto suddenly clutched his head. "Damn, hate that."

The clone looked confused. "Says here it was because they were going to try to take over, and it says that the Old Man was in on it too."

Naruto turned to look at him for a moment. "Ahh, damn headache." He then turned to look at the book. "Oh yeah, says they were going to try a coup, what's a coup?" The clones ignored him, looking at each other worried.

The one still looking over his shoulder asked him. "Hey, who did you say ordered it? Read it out again."

"Ugh." Naruto looked. "It says here the village elders Danzo Homura and Koharu... Ugh my head... ordered Uchiha Itachi to kill his clan to prevent a coup d'etait."

The clones looked at each other, Naruto was confused. "What?"

"Maybe he's got a memory seal or something, stop's him remembering certain stuff, has it all here in the spy making book."

"Hey wait, what?! A seal on my head?!" Naruto quickly made a clone. "Search me for seals, that I don't know about."

"Look on his head under the hair." The clone reading about spy making supplied helpfully.

After a few tense moments the clone stopped ridling through Naruto's sunny blond locks. "Well, he's got lots of moles on his head, is that normal? There's none anywhere else."

"They can be hidden as moles!"

"Oh... crap..." Naruto sulked. "So what kind of thing am I missing?"

"Well it's blocking you from remembering someone important that you like did something bad, if there's lots of them, who knows what they do?"

Suddenly depressed Naruto decided he didn't really feel like reading anymore that night.

"Hey why didn't they make one to erase knowledge about themselves?"

Naruto shrugged dejectedly. "I don't know, I'm going to bed, I don't feel like reading anymore. You guys seal that stuff away and dispel."

A minute later as the room was filled with the sound of clones dispelling Naruto was hit with an intense burst of information, as well as certain memories the clones had gained being removed as they were repeatedly formed, he felt a moment of severe pain in his head before passing out.

---)(---

The next morning Naruto awoke with the sun completely refreshed, as usual. It took a few moments for him to remember the night before. Carefully he tried to see if he could remember reading any of the other books Sasori had left, he could remember the beginnings of all of them, though he couldn't remember lots of those since he plain didn't understand some of it and it was thus forgotten. This would take work.

Naruto decided he would think on the seal situation as they returned back to the Leaf. He said goodbye to Gaara, Temari and Kankurou, he found it hard to look at Temari that morning after what Gaara had said. Sure she was very pretty and smart but he would hardly ever see her, he'd think about it, he promised and he never broke his promises.

He met his team and Team Gai at the gate and they set off, Gai was carrying Kakashi, which relieved Naruto, now he just had to deal with their general weirdness. Mercifully Sakura didn't mention what he'd said the day before.

On the way back he decided he needed to talk to someone who knew about seals and also whom he could trust. As he was feeling disillusioned with Kakashi and Jiraiya still he decided to talk to Tsunade, his granny, in spirit at least. She had a seal on her forehead, which she made herself so she must know something about them. He also remembered the piece of advice he had read... somewhere in Sasori's notes: 'a piece of truth is better than a lie to cover something up'.

He decided to kill two birds with one stone, he'd say he found the upgraded bingo book in Sasori's scroll and give it to Tsunade, he could then tell her about how he found out about the seals on his head.

---)(---

The journey back took them three days at full speed. Though Gai returned with Kakashi on his back well before that. Naruto spent most of his spare time hiding away in his tent reading through the upgraded bingo book, memorising as much about Red Dawn and the Tailed Beasts as possible.

The one who scared Naruto the most was Kakuzu, the only member of the Red Dawn who Sasori had never devised a strategy to fight against. Mostly Sasori's strategies consisted of lures and ploys and traps which ended in the opponent being poisoned with his special poison. He truly was over reliant on that, but not without reason, he had devised ways to kill everyone else in the Red Dawn with it. Except Kakuzu who Sasori postulated would simply harden his skin and fire massive elemental attacks, making himself impervious to poisoned bladed weapoms and decimating Sasori's army at the same time.

How the hell was Naruto going to beat someone like That? Well, Naruto had a long way to go before he could beat any of them so there was no real reason to focus all of his fear on just the one.

---)(---

The entire trip Sakura had been uncommonly quiet. Naruto figured she was thinking about something, either Sasuke or what he had said to Kakashi, he wasn't sure which.

He found out on the last night before they returned when Sakura knocked on the flap to his tent. Naruto only noticed because of how quiet it was since there was no knock, more of a pointed rustling. "Sakura?"

"Can I come in for a moment?" She whispered.

"Uh, sure." Naruto whispered back, even though he didn't know why he was doing it he felt compelled to whisper in return.

Sakura clambered into his small one man tent, Naruto was sat at one end so she situated herself at the other. Saukura waited for a moment for Naruto to ask why she was there, when he didn't she decided to just get on with it. "Is it true, what you said to Kakashi before?"

Naruto shrugged lightly before responding. "Do you think I lied?"

"Well no but... It's so hard to believe, why would he do that?"

Naruto thought about it, he was under the impression she knew about the Nine Tails, he didn't fancy telling her if she didn't, so he thought of a way to tell her without giving it away. Wordlessly he pointed to his stomach.

Sakura followed his hand and was confused for a moment before her eyes widened in realisation. "What, but, because of... That's so unfair!"

Naruto shrugged. "Ninja don't play fair, Sakura."

"Against enemies, Naruto, not against comrades!" She hissed back, as if it were his fault.

"Well maybe I'm considered an enemy, Sakura!" He hissed in return.

When she couldn't think of anything to say in return, despite obviously trying to think of something, Naruto sighed heavily. "It's late, let's get some sleep, eh?"

She smiled lightly. "Okay, g'night Naruto."

"Nite Sakura."

---)(---


	2. Chapter 2

People should look up The Golden Power by DBAinsw, and Children of an Elder God. Not on , search on google, epic work.

---)(---

When they returned they went straight to Tsunade's office in the Fire Shadow tower to report a successful mission, sort of.

Kakashi made the report, though he had written out a report on the way back as well, being such a high class mission, they gave a verbal report. Sakura took over to relay how she treated Kankurou, which impressed Tsunade. When it got to them splitting up she asked Kakashi to explain his reasoning.

"Well, as a puppet user I assumed he used poison, like Kankurou." He looked at Naruto who nodded. "So I figured Naruto, with his Shadow clones would be best suited to fight that kind of opponent."

"Okay, carry on your report."

After Kakashi had finished his report Naruto had to explain his battle against Sasori. He basically told them the same thing he told Gaara and his siblings, though he took care to slip in the fact that the only thing he used from either Kakashi or Jiraiya's teachings was the Rasengan.

At the end of Naruto's story Tsunade took a small moment to glare at Kakashi before responding. "Well done, Naruto. Taking out an S class ninja alone is no small feat. You're all dismissed, take a few days to rest. Kakashi, I'd like to speak for a moment."

Kakashi sighed in defeat and didn't move, Sakura made to go at the dismissal but Naruto didn't move. "Yes, Naruto?"

"Um, can I speak with you for a minute, alone?"

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, you wait outside." She pointed to Kakashi. Sakura looked questioningly at Naruto but Kakashi ushered her outside with him.

"Okay Naruto, what do you want to talk about?"

Instead of answering immediately Naruto glanced about the room suspiciously. There had been mention in the spy journals of things seen or heard from the office of one of the Shadows, he couldn't remember which one but that didn't matter, really. Sasori wasn't the only person with spies, Jiraiya had spies himself.

Making a decision Naruto made some Shadow clones.

"What are you doing, Naruto. If this is some prank you'll regret it."

"No, no prank Granny." The clones transformed into thick stone blocks, making an open cubicle. "I'm just being paranoid, can we talk in here?"

"Paranoid, what about, what is that anyway?"

"Come on, please?"

Tsunade sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, her curiosity was peaked however so she relented. "Fine, this better be good though." She stepped into the three sided cell. Behind her another Naruto Transformed into a fourth stone slab and a Naruto jumped up to form a stone slab roof. Finally the last Naruto stood in the corner and formed a Rasengan, creating a flickering blue light in the small cell as well as circulating the air and making a humming sound.

"What is that for?" Tsunade said, her voice raised slightly as she eyed the Rasengan wearily.

"It's interference. Sound and Chakra interference, useful huh?"

Tsunade took a moment and found that she couldn't sense anything outside the cell because of the sheer amount of Chakra swirling around inside due to the Rasengan. "Okay, now that we're isolated from the world, what's going on?"

Narut pulled out the upgraded Bingo Book. "I found this sealed in Sasori's storage scroll where he kept his puppets, I was reading through it when something happened."

"What do you mean by 'upgraded' ?" Tsunade was eyeing the book as if it were gold, which it was, really.

"Don't worry, you can have it." He opened the page to the bit on Uchiha Itachi. He pointed to the bit about the massacre being ordered. "Look here, there's four names, right?" He gave her the book, she began reading it, her eyes wide. "Well, I can only read three of the names, but my clones read four, so we, I, think there's a seal of some sort on my memories, more than one actually."

Tsunade forced herself to stop reading the book to respond. "Seals, memory seals? Why the hell would you have memory seals?"

"I don't know, I don't remember, duh!" Naruto said exasperatedly. "Can you get rid of them, Will you get rid of them? Please?"

At the desperation in his voice Tsunade turned her full attention away from the book, though even the glimpse she had seen of it made her want more. "Okay, Naruto. I can have a look. Come here, I'll shave your hair off so I can get a good look."

"What?!" Naruto backed away. "Can't you do anything without shaving all my hair off?!"

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Oh relax, I can grow it back for you, it's not hard."

Naruto relaxed a little. "You can do that? Well.. okay." He stepped forward and pointed his head at her.

Tsunade's hand glowed green and she began slowly moving it over the surface of Naruto's scalp, his sunny locks falling away in its wake. "Out of curiosity, what would you have done if I said no?"

Naruto shrugged. "What could I do, You're the only person I can really turn to."

Tsunade's eyebrow rose. "What about Kakashi or Jiraiya? They're both seal artists, Jiraiya more so than anyone else."

"I'm feeling a bit disillusioned with them at the moment, I think in the space of a few minutes, while he was trying to distract me by talking, Sasori taught me more about being a Ninja than either of them have ever done."

Tsunade stepped back, pushing lightly on Naruto's shoulder for him to raise his head. "What kind of stuff?" She refrained from asking how that it was possible Jiraiya hadn't taught him anything over the course of their trip, not to mention she knew he had taught Naruto both summoning and the Rasengan.

"Did you know Shadow Clones can send information back to the user?" Tsunade nodded. "I didn't."

"What about summoning or the Rasengan? I know he taught those to you."

Naruto shrugged. "I guess so, though it was more leaving me to learn it myself, it just hurts being neglected so much, y'know?"

Tsunade smiled sadly and rubbed his now bald head, resisting the urge to laugh at him due to how stupid he now looked. "Okay well, I'll have a look at these for you, turn around." She had to stifle a gasp at what she saw, all over his head were little moles, where he had none over the rest of his body. Moles being a type of skin lesion she assumed they were taken care of by his healing ability, so they had to be seals.

She decided to explain what she was doing as she went. "Seals like these are generally disguised as moles by using a simple technique to compact the sealing script into a dot. I can't remove them, Jiraiya might be able to, but I can isolate them. What that means is that they will be dormant, even when you learn something which should trigger the seal, they won't activate, is that okay?" Naruto nodded.

She set about individually 'unpacking' each seal then applying a simple containment seal over each. Since the seals were purely reactive she merely had to isolate them, nothing fancy like a more invasive seal would require, just a few hand seals and a drawing her glowing finger around the seal. It took almost ten minutes however, due to how many seals were present.

"Okay, all done. How long would you like your hair? Same as before?"

"Yeah, please." She put her hand on his head and it glowed a light green, soon the glow spread across his entire scalp and his hair began to grow rapidly, in mere moments he again sported a head full of sunshine blond spikes. "Thanks, Granny."

"It's okay. Here, read this, who does it list as ordering the massacre?" She pointed to the section in Uchiha Itachi's bio that it mentioned who ordered him to commit the massacre.

"It says Danzo, Homura, Koharu and.. Sarutobi... Isn't that the Old Man's name?" Tsunade nodded sadly. "But why would he order Sasuke's family killed? I thought he was one of the good guys, he was always so nice."

Tsunade put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "He always was one of the good guys, Naruto but being the leader of a hidden village is hard, Ninja business is ugly. I'm sure he tried to reason with them before it came to that." Naruto nodded. "It seems the memory seals are dormant, you will never get back what you lost, but that might be a good thing."

"What do you mean?"

Tsunade sighed. "I mean, you've had a hard life, it's possible that you've experienced some traumatic events, the memories of which have been taken from you."

"Traumatic like what?"

"I don't know, Naruto. Frankly, I don't want to know. There was one seal however which wasn't a memory seal, it was a compunction seal. I don't know what it compelled you to do but I have a good idea."

"What?"

Tsunade paused and blew out a breath. "You've never broken a promise, right? Ever?" Naruto nodded slowly. "Did Sarutobi ever get you to promise something when you were younger?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just think about it, did he ever incite you to make a promise? Maybe a promise to be loyal or something like that?"

Naruto thought about it for a minute. "I... I think I promised him I'd be loyal, love the village, protect the village, be Hokage. It was so long ago, I thought he'd be disappointed if I didn't promise."

Tsunade nodded solemnly. "Okay, well, I thought so. Now don't go mad, let me explain. I didn't seal that seal yet, I want to test it, see if we can figure out what it did before sealing it off."

"So, I've still got some compunction seal on my head?"

"Yes, but don't worry, I think I've figured it out. Now, I want you to promise me that you'll punch one of your hands with the other constantly until I tell you it's okay to stop. But after you've promised I want you not to do it, okay?"

"Uh, didn't you just tell me it's okay to stop?"

"No, if you stop before I say it's okay, you'll be breaking your promise, okay? Now come on."

Naruto sighed. "Fine. I promise to punch one hand with the other until you say it's okay to stop." Immediately he began doing just that. Though he didn't seem surprised by it.

"Naruto, why are you doing that?"

"I promised."

"But it's silly, why not break your promise?"

"Yeah, it is silly, but a promise is a promise."

"Can you break your promise?"

Naruto thought for a bit and began staring at his hands, one still punching the other, a dawning look of horror formed on his face. "I can't stop, why can't I stop!?"

"Okay, it's okay to stop, calm down, Naruto." Naruto immediately stopped, he stared at his hands in horror, knowing what it meant.

Seeing the look Tsunade's heart melted a little. "I'm sorry Naruto." She slowly enveloped him in a hug. "Don't worry, I'll seal that one off too." She reached round while hugging him and made a circle on his head with a glowing finger. "There you go. Now, promise me you'll stop hugging me right now."

Naruto chuckled a little, muffled lightly by her chest. "I promise." He didn't move for several minutes.

When they finally stepped apart, Naruto's eyes still glistened slightly but he looked happier. "Thank you, Granny."

"That's okay, Naruto." She stroked his cheek lightly. "I wonder what other promises you've made over the years? You probably should take some time to think about it, think about whether you want to keep any of them."

Naruto nodded solemnly. "Yeah."

"I'm going to recommend you go talk to one of the Yamanaka's about this. They know far more about psychology than I do, It would be best to make sure you're okay."

Naruto nodded lightly but didn't respond. "Now I know that look, come on, it's okay to ask for help. Promise me you'll go talk to one of them?"

Naruto chuckled lightly. "Sure, Granny. I promise."

"Okay kiddo, off you go, Kakashi's still waiting outside, though it serves him right. Send him in on your way out."

"Okay." The clone holding a Rasengan slowly dissipated it before dispelling, the stone slabs around them dissipated as well, leaving them standing in the middle of Tsunade's large office.

Naruto headed out, waving behind him. Quickly, when he wasn't looking Tsunade summoned a small slug into the palm of her hand. "Find Jiraiya, tell him to get to my office, now."

"Yes, Mistress." The slug then dispersed with a small poof of smoke.

She then walked slowly around her desk to her chair, ignoring Kakashi's entrance and greeting until she was properly situated.

"Now, Kakashi I'm sure you're aware of why I asked you to stay behind." She made a point not to apologise for making him wait since he did that often enough.

"Ah something to do with Naruto's report?"

"Indeed." She adopted her intimidating posture, elbows on the desk, hands together in front of her mouth. "Up until now I had thought you taught Naruto the Shadow Clone technique, I had excused your teaching Sasuke the Chidori since Naruto knew the Rasengan. I had thought Sakura slightly neglected when I began teaching her because she only knew some illusory techniques, but due to he small Chakra capacity, it is to be expected she couldn't be taught techniques similar to those two."

She sat back, staring at Kakashi evenly. "Tell me Kakashi, what have you taught Naruto, you were his only teacher for a year were you not?"

Obviously knowing he was in the wrong, Kakashi began trying to excuse himself. "I had planned to teach Naruto Elemental manipulation when he returned, Jiraiya and I-"

"I don't care about Jiraiya or your plans, you were Naruto's teacher for one year, in that time what did you teach him?"

"I spent a lot of time on teamwork and tactics because Team Seven, especially Sasuke and Naruto, tended to clash rather than mesh." Kakashi paused but Tsunade merely stared at him. "In terms of techniques I taught Naruto how to use his Chakra to adhere to surfaces."

After a few moments when Kakashi didn't say anything else Tsunade sighed and dropped her hands. "I see. Was this your own negligence or were you pressured into it?"

After a while when Kakashi didn't answer Tsunade slammed her hand down on her desk, surprising him. "Answer me Kakashi!"

He sighed wearily. "The Third ordered that Naruto be kept behind the rest of his team, in terms of personal teaching. I don't know why, I hope he wanted for Naruto to become independent as a Ninja but I can't see how this would've helped."

Tsunade rubbed her forehead. "Great, just great. I warn you now, if you're lying... Ugh. Well you mentioned planning to teach Naruto Elemental manipulation. Better late than never I guess. Well it's up to Naruto as to whether or not you get that privilidge."

"Excuse me, Lady Tsunade, what do you mean?"

"I mean, Kakashi, you cannot be trusted with his teaching anymore, nor could you ever have been it seems."

"But..."

"I don't care, Kakashi. You know what I would've done if I had been ordered to neglect one of my students? I would have ignored that order because it's wrong. I'm personally taking charge of Naruto's training, obviously I'll have to deligate but it seems I can't trust anyone else on this."

Kakashi deflated. "Yes, my Lady."

"Ugh, come here, you're obviously still exhausted, let me look at your eye." Kakashi moved forward and removed his headband, revealing his Sharingan.

Tsunade put her hand over it, glowing green. "Eugh, this thing really is bad for you. I think I've fixed any permanent damage but you should go to the hospital and rest for a few days."

"Of course, Thank you Lady Tsunade." She waved him off and he walked out of the office rather than disappearing as he usually did.

---)(---

Naruto didn't know much about the Yamanaka clan, all he did know was knowledge about Yamanaka Ino which was transferable such as their specialisation in mind techniques or their blond hair. As such, he found himself in front of the Yamanaka flower shop.

Naruto didn't know about Ino's mother, but he knew that Inoichi was a Ninja and that he practiced the Yamanaka family techniques, so he figured he would either have to talk to Ino or her father. He could try and find another member of the family through them but they would want to know why he did and so would probably find out anyway, making it useless to bother.

Naruto didn't know Ino very well but he knew she was Sakura's friend, even if they didn't admit it. He didn't fancy the idea of Sakura finding out as he knew she would ask all sorts of questions, not to mention the fact that he had made a big promise to Sakura, one she had virtually made him make, and he had been avoiding thinking about that since he had left the Fire Shadow Tower.

As such he was leaning towards talking with Yamanaka Inoichi, though that would be dependent upon what the man thought of him.

When he entered the shop a little bell above the door rang and a rather bored looking blond man looked up from his seat behind the counter. He had obviously been roped into being there and did not appreciate it.

The blond man looked up when he heard the bell, Naruto scrutinised his face to judge his reaction. He didn't seem bothered that Naruto had walked into his shop, but his eyes did flicker to Naruto's stomach. Naruto knew that didn't mean the man had any bad feelings toward him but he still felt uncomfortable suddenly around him. As such the decision was made to look for Ino instead.

"Hello, can I help you?"

Naruto fidgeted nervously. "Ah yeah, is Ino around?"

The man looked at Naruto warily. "What do you need to see her for?"

Feeling even more uneasy Naruto really didn't want to discuss it with the man. "Ah, it's private, is she around?"

Inoichi's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I'm sure you can tell me."

"I'm sure it can't be that private, don't worry. I won't tell anyone."

Naruto figured Inoichi had somehow come to the conclusion that he was looking to ask Ino out, he had seen the protective look before but at the same time he also thought the man might be trying to protect Ino from him because of who he was. Having already been stressed out Naruto snapped far more easily than usual. "Fine! I want to talk to her because your clan is supposed to be good with psychology and I need some help, I decided not to talk to you because the first thing you did when I walked in was look at my stomach and I'm sick of it, I think by now I deserve more than that!" Naruto huffed at the end of his rant. "Do you know where Ino is?"

Inoichi showed his experience as a Ninja, he didn't even blink at Naruto's outburst. "Id be happy to help you, but you're right. I'll go find Ino, I think she's in her room." He left before Naruto could thank him or apologise.

Naruto calmed quickly and berated himself for taking his stress out on what amounted to a total stranger.

A few moments later Ino came bounding out the same door he left from. "Oh hey Naruto, what's up? Daddy said you wanted to see me?"

Inoichi came out a few moments later. "Ah yeah, do you have a few minutes?"

Now confused Ino answered. "Yeah, I guess. Why?"

"Um, I'd rather tell you in private." Ino looked questioningly at her dad who just nodded at her. "Okay, sure. Come up to my room."

Naruto followed as she lead. On his way past Ino he said. "Sorry about that."

The blond man nodded. "I understand."

When they got to Ino's rooms she sat on her bed and Naruto took a chair. "Okay so, what did you want to talk about?"

Naruto fidgeted for a moment. "You can't tell anyone about this, okay?"

"Okay." Ino replied slowly. Suddenly feeling that this was more serious than she had thought, she had assumed Naruto wanted help wooing Sakura or something.

"It's just, Tsunade said I should talk to a Yamanaka and you're the only one I know so... I hope you don't mind."

Ino shook her head. "I don't mind... What's going on, you sound really serious, you never sound serious."

Naruto chuckled. "Hah, yeah I guess. It's just..." Naruto paused, unsure of how to begin. "I found something wrong with my memory, my clones could remember something which I couldn't. Anyway, a clone had a look and found some seals on my head hidden as moles."

Ino's eyes widened when she realised the implications. "Yeah, I know. So I asked Granny and she uh, what did she call it, she isolated them, so they don't work anymore but there was another one, a compunction seal which made it so I couldn't go back on a promise, no matter what."

Ino's wide eye look slowly melted into confusion. "Promises, but you shouldn't break promises anyway, why put a seal like that on someone?"

"Yeah, you'd think but when you're a little orphan with nobody and a nice old man asks you to promise to protect the village and all this other stuff, you say it, no questions asked. You don't know what you're doing but you're stuck with it for the rest of your life."

"What?! You don't mean, the Third did..." Naruto nodded. "Oh my god!" Her hands rose to her mouth as if to protect her from the horror. "Why would he do that?"

Naruto looked at her for a moment. "If I do this." He pointed at his stomach. "What does that mean to you?"

Ino looked at him confused. "Your stomach? What the hell, Naruto?"

Naruto raked his hand through his hair and sighed. "I guess you would've found out anyway. I only found out when we graduated. I'm like Gaara, I've got one of the Tailed Beasts sealed inside me."

"Oh my god!" Ino paused. "Which one?!"

Naruto looked at her incredulously. "Oh right, duh. So they wanted to make sure you were loyal, but why wouldn't you be?"

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno, There were a lot of memory seals and I only know what one of them did, It made me forget anything bad about the Third, my guess is a lot of the others were to erase some traumatic event or another, people don't exactly like me in this village you know." Ino nodded wordlessly, recalling with shame how she had treated Naruto in their few brief meetings at the Academy. "I don't really mind that, it's probably for the best and it's over now but I don't know how much of my life I've forgotten, how many of the people I've looked up to aren't who I think they are, I feel like so much of my life is a lie, you know?" Ino nodded.

Naruto noticed Ino seemed at a loss as to what to say or do, though she obviously felt bad for his situation, maybe he should have talked to Inoichi, he was without a doubt more experienced than Ino, and thus more likely to be helpful, but too late now. "Anyway, Granny told me to come talk to a Yamanaka. You're the only one I know so... well, I don't even know why she told me to come talk to you, do you?"

Ino took a moment to compose herself, it was a lot of information and she was still reeling but she had been taught to distance herself in a professional situation so she put her thoughts to the back of her mind and thought about Naruto's situation. "I guess she wanted to make sure you're okay, I'm sure it's hard and you must feel like your world's turned upside down, so you need to work through it. I can give you some advice and be someone to talk to but that's the best I can do really, there's no mind technique for this sort of thing."

Naruto nodded. "Okay, so what's your advice?"

"Okay well, firstly think about all the promises you've made and make a decision yourself on whether you want to keep them, if you were forced or tricked into making them, especially with a seal like that on you then it's not wrong to go back on it." Naruto nodded. "About the memories, seals like that require a very specific trigger, one which has to be present when they're applied, so anyone you're certain you've met since they were applied you can be sure you remember everything about them. Other than that you'll have to decide whether you want to dig into your past and face the cosnequences of whatever's there or whether you want to move on from here and live for the future. Personally I know I'd want to know, but it's almost certain there's nothing nice to be found, I don't think it would be worth it, honestly." Naruto nodded again, solemnly.

"Lastly, god I can't believe I'm gonna say this. You have to decide whether you want to stay loyal to the village. You never got the choice before like we all did when we became Ninja. From the sounds of it this village has deeply betrayed you, but I want you to know that I'm here for you, and I'm sure the rest of the rookies are too." Ino hesitated for a moment before shooting forward and embracing a surprised Naruto in a hug. "I'm so sorry, it's so unfair but it's over now." She hugged him for a few more moments before moving back awkwardly. "Sorry about that, it was totally unprofessional.

"That's okay, thanks Ino, I really appreciate it."

"That's okay Naruto, you can come talk to me any time you want, okay?"

Naruto decided he needed to do some serious thinking, but he also needed to do some training, he had a lot to catch up on, so he went to find an empty training ground and do both.


	3. Chapter 3

Check out Medicinal Lullaby by shivakashi, awesome concept, and the epic Lost Soul by LD 1449.

---)(---

Once he arrived to a nondescript field Naruto got out Sasori's scroll and sat down. Sasori had told him to do Chakra control exercises, he could set some clones doing that and do some physical training, then he could go try and find out about Elemental manipulation, whatever that may be.

The first exercise mentioned, before the tree walking or water walking or sand walking, was Chakra strings. Naruto was skeptical so he only sent half his clones to try that exercise, he sent the others to do the next exercise in there which was floating a sliver of wood over the forehead or palm, this was also before any of the control exercises he already knew.

Naruto vaguely remembered Iruka trying to teach him to float a leaf on his forehead in the Academy, the memory was fuzzy and he pointedly decided not to think about that. Instead he sent the other clones to experiment with floating leaves on their bodies.

Sasori's notes weren't much help on doing a physical workout since the man himself had rid himself of his own musculature many years ago. Fortunately one of the only things Jiraiya had done other than writing, various activities based on his libido, trying to teach him to control the Nine Tails' energy and drinking was to train him physically, so Naruto knew what to do.

Fortunately for Naruto, his extreme stamina meant that he had plenty of time to go over recent events in his head while doing something kept him from sinking into depression.

---)(---

Tsunade stopped what she was doing just before Jiraiya entered her office through the window.

"What was so urgent you sent a slug? Why not just send a Ninja?"

"Because you avoid the Ninja I send and I'm not in the mood. Sit down."

"Wow, take it easy." Tsunade merely glared at Jiraiya so he sat down. "Okay so what's this about?"

Tsunade adopted her 'intimidating pose'. "You know that I think very highly of Naruto, who also happens to be your godson." Jiraiya nodded slowly, wondering where she was going with this. "You also know that I am familiar with your style as a Seal Master, probably the best there is at the moment."

Jiraiya nodded, his danger sense was tingling though so he didn't react as he usually would at the praise. "Okay, where are you going with this?"

Tsunade sighed, she had hoped Jiraiya would come clean. "Fine, if you're going to be like that. I want you to explain to me the function of every seal you placed on Naruto's head and I want to know why you put them there, each one. Start talking."

Jiraiya's eyes widened in alarm, he was totally unprepared for that. "Ah well it was a long time ago, I'm not sure I can remember everything." Tsunade merely stared at him. "Right, right. Well most of them were for sealing away specific memories, a lot of bad things happened before Teach got a handle on the village after the Nine Tails came rampaging in." Tsunade nodded, she had expected that much. "There were two proactive memory sipher seals which targeted negative imprints about Teach and the Village in general and a Compulsion Seal. Teach managed to convince me that if Naruto were steadfastly loyal to the village and loved it then people would come to love him rather than see him as a monster, if left alone, the way people looked at him, talked to him, treated him, he would've lost it..."

"As he was your godson I believe it was your responsibility to look after him since he became an orphan, am I wrong?" Jiraiya hung his head. "So instead of doing that you brain washed him, brushing it off as Sarutobi's idea then went galavanting off across the continent, not to mention why the hell did you leave the compulsion seal activated?! How many promises do you suppose he's made his entire life?!"

"I deactivated it after Teach had what he wanted, I swear, and I wasn't galavanting, I was running one of the largest spy networks there is, that was just a cover for my travelling a lot."

"Well it was activated until today, morons the lot of you." Tsunade sighed. "Very well, that's all in the past now, there's nothing I can do about it, but I want you to make up something to stop any more seals being placed on him, got that?" Jiraiya nodded. "And I want to see it before you even think of applying it."

"What? You can't possibly think..." Tsunade glared hard at him, her aura screaming of the violence she felt towards him. "Fine, fine..." He finished dejectedly.

"Good, now I want a run down on what you taught him while you were away.

"Okay, well we worked heavily on his physical condition and spent some time on his martial technique but mostly we focused on his ability to draw and control the Energies of the Nine Tails." Tsunade waited a moment, expecting more. "Ooh, that lead to the creation of the Big Rasengan, which utilizes the Fox's energy."

After a while, when nothing more came Tsunade exploded. "That's it?! Three years and thats it?! You said you were going to prepare him to fight the Red Dawn, an organisation dedicated to capturing people like Naruto, you don't think they'd be prepared for him to do the exact same thing as every other damn host that they have already captured, do you?!"

Jiraiya tried to explain. "Ah well, he had a lot more trouble with it than I anticipated."

"What about teaching him techniques?! Chakra control?! He didn't even know the information retrieval abilities of the Shadow Clone technique until one of the Red Dawn told him. What about those Sage abilities, what about seals?! God damn it, you've already trained one ninja capable of fighting off the Red Dawn, it's not like you had to think too hard."

"Come on, Tsunade. That's not fair. Minato was a genius like no other I've seen and it took him many years to get to grips with sealing, how do you expect Naruto to do that in three?"

"Aside from having some faith in your student, or at least trying, you could've trained him for many years, why not have a single naruto working on a different thing every day, it's not rocket science! He must be the only Ninja in history with such an advantage available to him. And what about the other stuff?"

"Ah well, the Toads were strangely reluctant to teach Naruto anything, their combination techniques, summon techniques or the Sage arts, especially the Sage arts."

"Well go ask them again, damn it. It's not just about making a strong Ninja, if they capture Naruto our entire way of life is most likely doomed. If you can't convince them then bring them here so they can explain to me why they don't feel like helping us."

"Eh, okay, I'll try."

Tsunade sighed, she really wanted to beat on Jiraiya, he claimed to be such a great Ninja, even performed like one, but then he goes and does this. "Jiraiya. I'd suggest you find something to teach Naruto before you leave, he's rather disillusioned with you and Kakashi at the moment and that's without knowing you put those seals on him and then abandoned him for his entire life."

Jiraiya nodded and walked out her office door, probably for the first time ever. Tsunade grabbed a bottle of Sake from her draw and took a seaky swig. "God I hate this job, stupid brat with his stupid inspiring speech and stupid heroism, ugh..."

---)(---

It was an hour later when Naruto finally finished his workout. Over that time he had decided he needed to know who he had been forced to forget things about so that he could trust his knowledge of people. As Ino had said he needed to know the person when the seal was applied, that ruled out his friends but everyone else was under suspicion, except Tsunade and Shizune, since they had been out of the Leaf since before then.

Under particular suspicion was Jiraiya, the man was the Third's student and had trained the Fourth, he was intrinsically linked to Naruto but the first thing he knew of Jiraiya was the time he found the man spying on the womens baths. He had thought it weird before but dismissed it as a fact of life, he hoped that it was indeed just that.

Other than that Naruto had decided to let go of the rest. If there were traumatic events in his past he was probably better off not knowing and he would have time to make up his mind about his loyalty since he wasn't going to leave the Leaf with a band of crazy strong criminals after him.

Feeling relieved Naruto decided he would thank Ino at some point. Before that however he wanted to find someone to help him with Elemental manipulation, the problem was the only two people still loyal to the Leaf who he had ever seen use any Elemental techniques were Kakashi and Jiraiya. He knew that to become a Jounin required control over two types of Elemental Energies so he could theoretically pick any of the Jounin and they should be able to help, or he could ask Tsunade. He figured Tsunade would be willing to help but he didn't want to take too much of her time, she was always swamped down with paperwork after all, so she was a last resort, just above Kakashi and Jiraiya.

Naruto still needed to cool down from his workout so he decided to go for a run around the training grounds and just ask whoever he ran into first.

He made a few extra clones and left them to read through more of Sasori's notes. He even had one looking through the spy journals for anything of use, the clone cursed him for getting the boring job but that's life.

Naruto had been jogging for far longer than required to cool down and was just bored when he came upon Team Gai. He was fairly certain Gai wouldn't want to teach him anything as he was close to Kakashi and he wouldn't want to steal Kakashi's student, he also didn't want to deal with a speech about youthfulness so he sent a clone to go ask, it could always dispel if it needed to escape.

"OHO NARUTO! I SEE YOUR FIRES OF YOUTH ARE BURNING BRIGHTLY!"

"Hi, Lee..." Naruto tried to get past Lee, who was frantically destroying a training post. "Gai can I.."

"AH YOUNG NARUTO! HOW CAN I HELP YOU?!"

The Naruto clone thanked it's luck that it wouldn't be permanently deaf because it wasn't permanent itself. "I was wondering if you'd give me a few starter tips on Elemental Manipulation?"

Gai's exuberant mood deflated somewhat. "Can you not ask Kakashi for such help?"

Naruto noticed that the entirety of Gai's team was listening in. "I can, yes, but I'm asking you... Will you help?"

"I'm sorry Naruto, it would be unyouthful of me to teach my Hip Rival's student without his permission." Gai was about to go into a lecture of youthfulness, he could feel it so thinking quickly the clone dispelled.

Naruto was hit with the memory as he continued his job, again he cursed Kakashi and Jiraiya, there was no way they hadn't noticed he didn't know that about the Shadow Clone technique but they never told him. How many near-death situations could've been avoided if he'd known?

After another twenty minutes Naruto got tired of his one man random search and so he made fifty Shadow Clones and sent them off to begin a fifty man random search.

It took half another ten minutes but one clone found Kurenai and Asuma sitting together on a table, they didn't look like they were doing anything special but the clone approached them slowly anyway. "Uh hey, Kurenai, Asuma, are you guys busy?"

Asuma was smoking his cigarette so Kurenai answered. "We were just relaxing Naruto."

"Oh right, okay well um, would either of you be willing to help me learn Elemental Manipulation?"

Asuma stopped smoking and peered at Naruto while Kurenai answered. "Can't you ask Kakashi if you want to learn that?"

Naruto shrugged. "I'm asking you, will you, either of you?" He looked at them both pleadingly.

"We can't just teach someone else's student without their permission Naruto." Asuma replied.

Naruto's eyes narrowed. "Can't or won't?"

Asuma raised his hands. "Wow, no need to be like that. Kakashi's more qualified than us to teach that kind of stuff anyway, he knows more than a thousand different techniques. You've got a perfectly good teacher, why are you asking us?"

"That's just it!" Naruto exclaimed. "I don't have a perfectly good teacher, I never have, nobody teaches me anything! Not Jiraiya, not Kakashi, I learned more from a criminal I killed than I did from either of them and he was just trying to distract me!" Naruto quickly calmed himself. "Sorry, it's just frustrating, will you help me?"

"Sorry Naruto, we still need permission."

Naruto sighed in defeat. "Fine." And dispersed in a small cloud of smoke.

The real Naruto stopped in the middle of the street and sighed. With a flicker of his Chakra he rest of his Clones dispersed, revealing no luck on all fronts but he did learn not to enter the Inuzuka compound over the wall. Better a clone than him.

Since nobody would teach him without permission, his next stop would obviously be to get permission, or maybe just get Tsunade to teach him.

---)(---

"Hiya Granny!" Tsunade jolted awake from her position laying on her desk.

"Damn it! I was having such a nice dream. What do you want?" She noticed Naruto's big grin, probably at her expense. "I see you've cheered up, been to see the Yamanakas?"

"Yeah, I talked to Ino, she really helped. I decided I just need to find who memories were altered about so I know who to trust, I figure the rest is best left buried."

Tsunade smiled. "My, that's a very mature outlook."

"Haha, yeah, I guess so. You must be rubbing off on me, I mean Mature is another word for Old, right?" The next thing Naruto knew he was lying on his back with a lump on his head, Tsunade's partially cracked paper weight lay on the floor in the corner of his vision. "Ow..."

Tsunade carried on as if he weren't on her floor nursing a probably concussion, it would pass. "Yes, well I can help you there. Since I knew what I was looking for I found a brief note about them, it seems that any bad memories you made regarding Sarutobi and the Village in general were sealed, everything else was memory seals."

Naruto groaned and rubbed his head a bit before responding. "Okay, so essentially I've been brainwashed my entire life into loving this village despite everyone here seemingly hating me or neglecting my training. Add to that I was brainwashed to look up to the Old Man and forced to want to become the Fire Shadow and protect this place."

Tsunade grew worried at the direction his thought process was going. "I guess that's accurate."

"Well I still respect you and I've got nowhere else to go. But I don't really fancy being the Fire Shadow anymore." Tsunade's face fell when she heard that. "Does this mean I have to give you your necklace back or else it will kill me?"

Tsunade smiled. "I thought you didn't believe in fate and all that stuff."

Naruto's fist rose from the floor. "Yeah, fight the power!"

"So what did you want to see me about?"

Naruto jumped up, though he was still rubbing his head. "Right! Can I get a letter giving someone not Kakashi to teach me Elemental Manipulation even though Kakashi's my teacher? Or could you help me?"

"A letter?"

"Yeah, I asked around but everyone said they needed permission."

"Permission? I don't see why, there's no restrictions on such things."

Naruto deflated. "Damn it, should have known."

"Now now, don't be like that. Kakashi commands a lot of respect amongst the Ninja force, they may merely be unwilling to be seen as taking his student, you shouldn't feel down. Besides, I can help you, beats paperwork any day."

"Really, you'll help me? Great! Thanks Granny!"

"Hmm don't thank me yet, I do have a lot of paperwork... How about you leave a few clones here to tidy up for me? I don't expect you to do any of my paperwork but It would be nice if my office were tidy for a change."

"Uh sure, I guess. Don't you know the Shadow Clone technique?"

Tsunade got up and walked around her desk towards the door. "Sure I do, I can make quite a few but I can't sustain them very long, it's quite costly on the Chakra just to keep one active you know?"

"It is?"

"Yes, Naruto. You have not only got ungodly amounts of Chakra, or perhaps godly would be the better term... but it regenerates abnormally fast. You may as well have drunk a load of powerthirst."

"What?"

"Nevermind, Youtube joke. Anyway, let's go." Tsunade led Naruto out the door. She caught the attention of the first Chuunin she saw. "Hey, Ayako was it? Go to the stores and get me some affinity paper, meet me at the door to the tower, chop chop!" Ayako ran off to do her new task.

"Say, isn't that an abuse of power?"

Tsunade grinned at him. "Yep, great huh? Now make those clones and let's go."

Naruto sighed before sending five clones to their boredom based doom.

At the exit to the Fire Shadow Tower Ayako met up with Tsunade and Naruto presenting a stack of square paper to them. "Here you go Lady Tsunade."

"Ah, thank you Ayako but, um, I only needed one. Be a doll and put the rest back would you?" Tsunade said as she extracted one square of paper.

Ayako deflated but did as asked. "Of course Lady Tsunade."

Tsunade walked off after handing Naruto the paper, expecting him to follow her. "Channel some Chakra into that."

Naruto hurried to catch up while doing as asked. "It split, what does that mean? Is that bad?"

Tsunade looked to her side as Naruto caught up. "No, that's not bad. That means you have an affinity for Wind natured Energies. The wind is the most offensive of elements, in its raw form it cuts but you can also use it to create forceful air attacks."

Naruto tried to make sense of that. "Does that mean it's the most powerful?"

"No, each element is capable of defeating one and easily defeated by another and equal to the other two. It is like rock paper scissors but with five choices rather than three."

"Oh, I get it, so what beats what?"

As Tsunade launched into a rather complicated lecture on Chakra theory, Naruto wished he hadn't asked. At least he managed to discern that fire was bad for him and he could beat lightning."

Eventually they made it into the training ground Tsunade was aiming for. Naruto had managed to convince her he was listening so she was still in a good mood. "Right, traditionally in the Leaf we use leaves to begin elemental training. In your case you're going to try to cut the leaf right across using your Chakra. To do this your Chakra must gain the properties of the Wind Element."

"Right." Naruto thought back to Sasori's advice. "So do I use a load of clones for this?

Tsunade smiled. "Exactly but first I have a few tips." Naruto listened eagerly. "I'm not proficient with Wind myself but I have studied it. To make wind natured Chakra you need to begin by grinding your chakra against itself as if you were sharpening a weapon. This will give it a sharp edge. As you learn about it you will get to know the feel for making it and it will come more easily. At this point you can begin to use it for techniques in place of regular Chakra."

"Right, got it!" Naruto put his hands together and created as many clones as he could safely manage. The forested area was filled with Narutos, who all immediately ran off to gather leaves for themselves and begin. "Right, I'll come and replace them when my Energy's back up."

Tsunade stared in wonder at the sheer amount of Naruto's in the area, all still energetic and capable of utilizing Chakra techniques. Not only that but his own energy would return even while he maintained so many clones. "Remarkable."

"What?"

"Nothing. So, fancy lunch? My treat, though not if we get Ramen."

"Aww..."

"Don't 'Aww' me, that stuff is bad for you. Sure you may need the calories with how much energy you burn through but that's no excuse for poor eating. Come on, I know the perfect thing."

Naruto followed along wearily after her.

---)(---

Naruto poked at the stuff in front of him. It looked like someone had taken Ramen noodles then instead of putting it in a broth with toppings and such they had put this horrible looking sauce on it then covered it with cheese, as if that would make it better. But the cheese smelled horrible too.

"Come on, just try it. Free food, remember? Besides, it's far healthier than Ramen. Less salt, less fat. Plenty of Carbs for your energy, some protein, come on."

"What... what is it?"

"It's called Pasta, spaghetti to be precise. Now Eat, that's an order!"

"Yes, Lady Fire Shadow." Naruto responded dejectedly.

Tsunade merely smiled and ate her own, watching carefully for Naruto's reaction.

To his surprise it wasn't bad. It didn't compare to the salty goodness that was Ramen, but apparently that wasn't so good, if Tsunade were to be believed.

"Try that, it's called Garlic Bread. It's rather distinctly not healthy, but I'm trying to ween you onto better food gently."

Naruto huffed at the thought that there was better food than Ramen in general, but he tried the 'garlic bread'.

His eyes flew wide, it was a taste sensation! "Mmm! This is really good!"

"Typical, you like the last healthy thing on the table. Well, you still have to eat the rest of your pasta. Feel free to order more pasta, no more galic bread though."

Naruto deflated, having been about to ask for just that.

Tsunade had a thought. "Waiter!" One came rushing. "Can you get me a pen and a piece of paper please?" unphased at the obscure request the waiter rushed off only to return shortly with the requested items.

Tsunade took a moment to scribble on the paper before she handed it to Naruto and gave the waiter the pen back. "Thanks. Here you go, Naruto. Wave this at anyone you like if you want more help with your training."

Naruto beamed. "Thanks Granny!"

"Don't thank me, Naruto. I'm going to make this your mission, train seriously, get as strong as you can. Things are happening and you, more than any of us, need to be ready."

Naruto nodded sadly. "Cheer up, you always wanted to be the best, right? Well now it's your mission and don't worry, I'll be here for you, okay?"

"Yeah, Thanks Tsunade." She smiled warmly at the affection in his voice.

"There's more. I want you to do physical training every day. You don't have to go mad but while your clones do Chakra stuff, you do physical stuff okay?" Naruto nodded, spaghetti hanging from his mouth. "Also I want you to eat a lot of protein, that means meat and cheese, Ramen is only allowed once per day."

Naruto quickly swallowed so he could moan. "Ah come on Granny!"

"No, once a day, I trust you to keep to this." Naruto deflated, knowing she had him cornered by saying that, stupid morals. "Now, I really have to get back to work. Feel free to order more and come here any time. I'll pay for your meals here, but I've told them what to give you, so you can't just gorge on galic bread." Naruto pouted, she knew him too well. Tsunade stood and made to leave, ruffling his hair on her way out. "Do me proud."

Naruto stared a moment at his food, his eyes glistening, before he dug in voraciously.

---)(---

When he got back to the training grounds he replaced the clones and sent some extra to do Chakra control exercises. He began to think on how to improve himself as a Ninja, Sasori had given him lots of advice but he had left him hole texts to learn from. Most of Sasori's techniques seemed to revolve around awesome control and low energy, the exact opposite of the spectrum to Naruto. The perfect example was Sasori's most basic technique, the Chakra string. Something Naruto still had made no head way on.

One thing rang true though, across Sasori's entire style, preparation. Poisoned weapons, needles in particular could easily be shared out amongst clones before, or even during a battle. The same with seals. Hell, clones could draw seals around the battlefield, if he knew any sealing techniques that is.

That in mind Naruto set a clone each to learn about poisons and seals and sent one out to stock up on weaponry.

He himself, as ordered, began another work out, only an hour after his last one. At least he would be getting stronger out of all this.

---)(---

On Mt. Myobokuzan Jiraiya was enacting his foolproof plan to convince the toad elders to teach Naruto to use Nature Energy, the Sage arts.

"Jiraiya, what in the blazes are you doing?!" A small grey haired toad was yelling at Jiraiya, who had just finished extracting some oil from a pond.

"Pa, what's going on?" Another toad came out, wearing curlers in her hair. "Jiraiya! What are you doing?!"

Jiraiya flinched, not having expected to be caught so early in his plan, he wanted at least another minute to compose himself, he had only just got there, stupid toads with their stupid Chakra sensing abilities. "Ah, Ma, Pa, good to see you." Jiraiya surreptitiously hid the water bottle full of oil behind his back.

"Explain yourself Jiraiya, you know it is forbidden to take the Toad Oil from the pond." Pa frowned heavily at his student. Ma walked to his side, adding to the effect.

"I'm sorry, Ma, Pa but this is serious. If you won't teach Naruto the Sage arts, I will, or at least I'll try."

"You can't Jiraiya, you're not nearly experienced enough, not to mention the boy is just far too young. He isn't ready for something like the Sage arts." Both the toad elders crossed their arms.

"He's also not ready for a bunch of S class maniacs to rip the Nine Tails out of his stomach, killing him in probably the most painful way possible, then to go on and do god knows what with them all." Jiraiya shouted.

"Be that as it may, Jiraiya." Pa began calmly. "He isn't ready."

Jiraiya frowned. "How do you know? You barely know him. I don't see why you refused to teach him the combination techniques or any of the advanced summoning techniques, if you had you'd see he's ready."

Pa just frowned, acting as if he were dealing with a petulant child, which he was, really, considering their respective ages.

Jiraiya brought out the water bottle full of oil. "Regardless, it is your choice, he is learning the Sage arts, I would prefer you teach him..."

"I will meet your apprentice, Jiraiya, we shall see if he truly is ready."

Jiraiya smiled, but he knew the old Toad was crafty so he quickly sealed the bottle of oil into a seal on the back of his hand, no one commented on the action but they all knew what it meant.

---)(---


	4. Chapter 4

Look up Tell me no Lies by Nugar. Also look up Fuujinroku by Daneel Rush. Also look up Every Demon Bleeds Black by Pridefall. Look up Tales from the House of the Moon by Resmiranda and Dead Famous by Rozefire. These are my most respected Authors and their stories.

---)(---

The next day Naruto started off with a workout, again leaving clones to practice various Energy exercises. He also left clones sorting through his new collection of needles and poisons, the poisons were a pretty basic selection he got from the Ninja stores in Konoha, they weren't nearly as strong as Sasori's, but he mixed them up and applied them, he would keep Sasori's for special occasions, or until he could make more.

He also left some clones practising throwing the needles, it was a lot harder than throwing knives, something he prided himself on, his star throwing wasn't very good, which was unfortunate since they took up less space.

After his workout Naruto set off for a run again, though this time he sent out twenty clones straight away to help him search.

It took him twenty minutes before he found someone, he found Kurenai and her team in one of the training grounds doing team tactics drills. Kurenai was stood to the side maintaining illusory opponents for them to fight. He guessed Hinata was purposefully letting them affect her since her eyes were supposed to be able to see through illusions.

"Hey guys!" Everyone stopped what they were doing, which looked odd to Naruto since they had been attacking thin air to his eyes. Naruto ran straight up to Kurenai waving the note Tsunade had given him. "Look, I got permission, so you can help me now right?"

Kurenai, puzzled, took a look at the note. "Naruto, this is from Lady Tsunade." Naruto nodded eagerly. "I'm sorry but it was not about that kind of permission. Kakashi is a respected comrade, it would be wrong of me to teach his student without his consent, I'm sorry." Kurenai handed the note back to Naruto.

"Ah come on! Kakashi only ever taught me one thing." Naruto held a finger up to emphasise the point. "He only taught me that because he was teaching Sasuke and Sakura the same thing, so I'm not really his student at all, so that means you can help me. Look it says here." Naruto pointed to the note, then began reading it. "'To whichever Jounin Naruto asks, you have full permission' Full permission, see?! 'full permission to help him with his training. -Tsunade' See? Come on, please?"

Kurenai sighed. "Fine, take a break for a moment team." her three students nodded but took their break suspiciously close to where they were talking. "Okay, do you know what affinity you have? It's always best to start with that.

Naruto nodded eagerly. "Yeah! Yeah, I'm Wind natured."

Kurenais eyebrows rose in surprise. "Wind, wow. That's very rare in the Leaf, in fact I only know of one Ninja who uses Wind natured Energies." Naruto deflated. "Don't worry Naruto, that happens to be Asuma."

"Really? The Smoke stack?! Awesome! Do you know where I can find him?"

Kurenai grimmaced slightly at the nickname but let it go, if Asuma took offence he could deal with it himself. "I think he's doing team drills as well today, you can probably find him in a training grounds, though I couldn't tell you which one."

"Alright! Thanks!"

Naruto made to leave but paused. "Wow, he doesn't like being called Smoke stack..." Naruto held his head for a moment as he integrated the memories he had gained from Asuma, before the Jounin had smacked his clone for the nickname, dispelling it."

"What do you mean, Naruto?"

"Huh? Oh, one of my clones ran into him, he couldn't really help, I already found out everything he said, but at least he tried to help, makes a change!"

Naruto turned to where Hinata, Kiba and Shino were situated, obviously waiting for Naruto to be done so they could get back to their training. "Hey, sorry for interrupting your training guys."

Shino merely nodded but Kiba had something to say. "It's alright I guess you need all the help you can get eh, right Akamaru?" His companion barked in agreement.

Naruto nodded grinning, completely missing that he had been insulted. "Right. Hey, if you guys want to fight some solid opponents I've got a load of clones training in grounds fourteen. Head over for a spar if you want? I'll be there so I can always make more."

"T-Thank you, Naruto." Hinata stuttered, blushing red.

"No problems Hinata, Cya later guys!" With that Naruto raced off.

Kurenai turned to her team. "Okay well, want to continue what we were doing or do you want to go and take Naruto up on his offer?"

Kiba was the first to respond, as usual. "Yea, let's go kick some Narutos asses!" Shino nodded and Hinata fumbled with her fingers.

"Okay then, to ground fourteen!"

---)(---

"Holy crap! That's a lot of clones!" Kiba announced team eight's presence at grounds fourteen.

Naruto stopped what he was doing, which was exercising, again. "Hey guys! Decided to take me up huh? How many clones you want to fight? Twenty?"

Kiba didn't know what to say, since he didn't want to express his surprise at Naruto's abilities. "I think if you make a big group but only have five fighting my team at any one time, that should keep them on their toes." Kurenai decided.

Before any one on her team could protest Naruto had made what looked like fifty clones, five of which had stepped forward eagerly. "I'm gonna keep up my workout, alright? Try not to move into where my clones are training, ok?" Naruto wandered off to his exercise spot and carried on beore they could answer.

Kiba looked at the rest of his team, who seemed equally shocked as he was by what Naruto was up to, though it was harder to tell with Shino.

"Alright guys, think fast! Here we come!" Team eight had moments to prepare as five Naruto clones charged them.

Team eight was well coordinated, Hinata and Kiba took out clones left and right while Shino covered them and coordinated Kiba with his own swarm, Hinata, with her eyes, could see the entire battle at once so was able to warn her team mates of any surprises coming their way, which happened a lot considering who they were fighting.

Naruto had to stop his exercise more than he had expected to replenish the crowd of clones waiting to charge into battle with them.

After half an hour though his reserves were waning. "Okay, wo there guys. I'm running low here, gonna have to cut it there."

Kurenai smiled, impressed, her entire team looked exhausted. "Thank you, Naruto. You've given my team a very impressive workout. Perhaps one last rush? Why not send all the remaining clones at them?"

"Haha, sure." Naruto cheered. Team eight had only moments to register their situation before twenty grinning clones converged on them.

"Damn you!" Kiba cried as he tornadoed across the training grounds, attempting to cut up as many clones as possible, using their numbers against them.

Naruto sat down, pleased with himself, breathing heavily from both his exertion as well as having depleted his energies so low.

"Hey, I got an idea!" The clone reading Sasori's notes on sealing announced suddenly, waking Naruto from his rest. "Check this out." It pointed to a section in the book, which was gibberish to Naruto. "And this!"

Naruto rubbed the bridge of his nose as he absently punched the clone in the face, dispelling it. The book landed on his lap and he left it there, more focused on the pain in his skull as half the book in his lap was suddenly filtered into his brain all at once. "Ugh, need to find a solution to that."

After taking a few minutes to sort through what his clone had learned, Naruto had to agree with himself, that was a good idea. He made a clone to replace the last and gave it the book on sealing before he made his way to the Fire Shadow Tower. "Got to go guys, I've had a good idea! Bye! Thanks for the training!" Naruto waved at Team eight, who were all collapsed on the floor, except Kurenai, who was just sitting with them.

They all waved, not nearly as enthusiastic as Naruto, too tired to be, however pleased that the source of clones was leaving, they were safe, for now.

---)(---

"Hey Granny! I've got an idea!" Naruto barged into her office surprising the blond woman.

"Agh Naruto, don't do that!"

Chastised but still brimming with enthusiasm, Naruto plowed on. "Sorry. I've been reading about seals! I can't make any yet but you can, right? Well you can stick a marker seal on me and keep a summoning platform with you." Naruto explained by pointing at himself and her. "Then if I get captured or anything, Bam!" Naruto slapped his hands together. "Not captured!"

Tsunade's eyebrow rose, that wasn't a bad idea. Such seals weren't easy but equally they weren't uncommon, they even used them for the Chuunin exams. "Okay, that's a pretty good idea, you'll have to wait for me to draw one up."

Naruto nodded. "Right, also you could make a beacon seal tied to my Chakra network, so it'll tell you if I ever run out of Chakra. Hey I could have one for you too!"

Tsunade nodded. "Okay, that will let me know if I ever need to summon you. Might take a while though, I'm not exactly the best seal artist out there" Tsunade was impressed, perhaps it was especially convenient that Naruto's current go to person for stuff like this was also the best medic on the continent.

"What about the seal on your forehead? That's awesome!"

"Thank you, Naruto but this seal-" Tsunade tapped her forehead. "-took me a long time and a lot of work to create."

"Oh, right. Well if you need any help I'll help! If I can that is..."

"Okay, I'll be sure to ask you if there's anything you can do to help. By the way, what exactly have you been reading on seals to come up with these ideas? I thought you said Jiraiya and Kakashi hadn't taught you anything like that."

Naruto scratched the back of his neck. "Ah well, I guess it's okay to tell you, but you gotta promise not to tell anyone."

"Okay..."

"I got more than that bingo book from Sasori, well, he gave me a load of books. Most of them were his techniques or ideas."

"Ok Naruto. I can see why you don't want anyone to know, the Sand would be in uproar if they found out, but why did he give you such things? Not only were you his enemy but you're the one who killed him." Tsunade watched carefully for any indication that Naruto had not in fact killed Sasori, just in case. There were none, however.

"Yeah, I know. He said it was his vengeance upon the Red Dawn for leading him to ruin, he also said that if I were to become strong enough to defeat them using his teachings that I should announce him as my teacher."

Tsunade nodded. "I see, it makes sense. From the reports and what you've told me he seemed taken with permanence, to the point he even turned himself into a puppet, it's entirely possible he may have lived forever were he never defeated in battle. In this way, he will live on in fame if not in person."

"Oh, I get it now." Naruto said. "There was one other book, journals from his spy network, but I can't figure it out."

"Wait, spy journals, you mean you had something so valuable and kept it hidden? Damn it Naruto!"

"Hey, shut up! It's not valuable at all, it's just loads of locations and numbers, there's no information on anything in there."

Tsunade calmed. "Okay, I'm sorry. Can I see it? I may be able to discern something you haven't from it."

Naruto shrugged. "Be my guest." he pulled out the scroll Sasori had used and unsealed a large worn book from it. "Here you go."

Tsunade opened it to a random page and began reading. Immediately she pinched the bridge of her nose and had to force herself to not scream and Naruto. "Naruto those numbers are dates."

Naruto immediately protested. "No way, see here it says twenty five, there's only twelve months. I already thought of that!"

Tsunade sighed and shook her head. "In the Sand they put the month first, then the day, then the year."

"What the hell? That's stupid, can't they count?"

"Yes, it is illogical, but they do."

"Oh, so how many dates have we missed?"

Tsunade read through the book for a while, skipping pages back and forth. "Ah here we are. It's been a week since you defeated Sasori, that means we've missed..." She ran her finger down the side of one page. "Two meetings. One in Rain country and on a bridge."

Tsunade closed the book and sat back. "We have another week before the next date and it's in fire country. I'm going to give this to Jiraiya, he's already a spymaster, I'm sure he can adapt to include Sasori's spies." Naruto didn't look too happy about Tsunade's suggestion, though he didn't say anything. "You look doubtful. I know Jiraiya's wronged you but he didn't mean to, he's just an idiot and he didn't know what he was doing. With this-" She tapped the book. "-he knows what he's doing. Besides I think he's going to try and make it up to you."

"What do you mean?"

Tsunade smiled. "You'll see, if I'm right that is."

"Okay..."

"One more thing, while you're here."

"Yeah?"

"Have you thought over the promises you've made in the past?"

Naruto's face darkened slightly. "Mostly. Other than my promises to the Old Man and my various declarations along the same lines since then, I've only really made two promises. One was to beat Neji up, which I did. The other was to get Sasuke back." Naruto deflated a little. "I don't really know about that one. I mean, I want him back but only if he's the Sasuke I knew, not the Sasuke who wanted to kill me, who chose to be a monster."

Tsunade nodded gravely. "Due to the exceptional circumstances in his departure, I can swing it either way, depending of course on the circumstances of his retrieval. Personally he reminds me too much of Orochimaru, though perhaps worse in some ways. But I'm willing to let you decide at the moment. That will change though if he makes any aggressive movements towards us."

"Thanks Granny. You're right, at the moment all he's done is run away for power. It's wrong but understandable, if he turns out to be like Orochimaru then he's my enemy."

"That's very mature." Tsunade paused. "No wise cracks..." Naruto chuckled. "How are your sessions with Ino coming?"

Naruto looked puzzled. "Sessions?"

"Yes, Naruto, sessions. Counselling. You can't just go once, healing takes time, it's a process and you're not going through it alone."

"Oh... right. I guess I should find Ino and organise some uh... sessions, then."

"Good. Off you go then, I'll let you know when I've prepared those seals."

"Right, remember to call me if you want help."

"Okay." Tsunade went to carry on with her paperwork. "Wait! It might help if I could have a look at that book on seals."

Naruto turned at her call. "Okay sure, I'll go get it." And with that he was off.

---)(---

In a dank room a bandaged man sat reading a report. His subordinate who had delivered it to him was knelt in his supplicating position, statuesque since he had adopted it.

After reading through the report with his single eye the man hummed to himself in thought. "There are a lot of mentions here to conversations we have no record of." The supplicating Ninja before him bowed lower for a moment.

"I'm sorry, My Lord. A few days ago the boy created a cell of stone inside the office. While inside there was a great deal of chaotic Chakra emanating from it, as well as noise, there was no way to know what was said inside. Also, Jiraiya has been in the village recently."

"Yes, yes I know. You have done well to not let that brat know of your presence, he is insufferably talented in the spying arts." The man sat for a long while before coming to a decision. "Very well, I wish for you to bring the Uzumaki boy to me. I believe your best course would be to attack him and then draw him to my location, I shall be waiting in the Delta safe house. Your name for interactions with the boy shall be Sai."

The boy, christened Sai, nodded. "As you will, My Lord." And disappeared in a splash of Ink. The man continued to sit in silence and near darkness for a few moments. "That damn woman is getting far too close to the demon, she's giving it far too much freedom. For the good of the Great Tree I will step in. The man stood and left the room by foot.

---)(---

Once he left the tower Naruto created a search party of clones to find Ino. He thought about looking for Sakura too, but decided against it. He knew he was just delaying the inevitable but he had not yet fully reconciled the situation for himself, if he could do that before talking to Sakura, it would be a lot easier.

Ino wasn't in her flower shop this time but out training with her team. The clone that found them dispelled and Naruto immediately ran off in their direction. As soon as he arrived he announced his presence, loudly. "Hey guys!"

Shikamaru was rudely awakened, Chouji paused in his munching. Ino paused her training and Asuma ignored the teen, still staring at a Chess board in frustration, he was obviously losing.

"Troublesome..."

"Hi." ***munch***

"Naruto! What are you doing here?"

"Actually I was looking for you Ino, got a minute?"

Ino nodded and wiped her forehead. "Sure, what's up?"

Naruto looked at Ino's team before jerking his head to the tree line. Ino shrugged and followed him. "Okay, now you can tell me."

"Granny said I should be having um, sessions." Naruto put the word sessoins in air commas with his hands, as if it were a made up word. "With you, to make sure I'm okay or something."

Ino chose to ignore Naruto's weirdness. "Who's Granny?" She stopped herself from mentioning the fact he was an orphan.

"Tsunade, you know. The Fire Shadow." Ino promptly whacked him on the head. "Oww! What the hell?!"

"You can't call Lady Tsunade 'granny'! Show some respect!"

"What do you mean, I'm not disrespecting her!"

"Yes you are! You're making fun of her age!"

"No I'm not, she's my Granny."

Ino paused. "What?"

"She's my Granny. She doesn't have any real family left so I adopted her, like she adopted Shizune."

"You... adopted Lady Tsunade." Ino rubbed her forehead. "Fine, if she's okay with that, whatever. Still you should show respect in public, so that other people know you're not disrespecting her or her authority."

Naruto scratched his head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, anyone hearing you call the ruler of this village 'Granny' for apparently no reason will assume you're disrespecting her, like I did. So to other people, or in public, you should call her by her title, okay?"

"Oh... I guess that makes sense. Thanks Ino, it's nice to know these things."

Ino frowned, correctly assuming that nobody had ever bothered to teach him ettiquette. "Well, sorry for hitting you, now what were you saying about sessions?" Ino parodied Naruto's air quotes, though he didn't notice the joke.

"Right, Gra... Lady Tsunade said I should have sessions with you, to make sure I'm okay or something. So can we set something up, is that okay? I don't want to impose."

"That's fine Naruto." She thought for a moment. "How about later today after training?"

"Sure! Thanks Ino." Naruto went to leave when Ino had an idea.

"Hey, Naruto wait up."

Naruto skidded to a stop. "Huh?"

"Well if you want to pay me back, you can train with me for a bit. My team's too lazy and my dad doesn't think I'm ready for our clan's advanced techniques, but I doubt I'll ever _be_ ready at the rate my team trains. You spent ages training with one of the Legendary Three, so you've got to be pretty strong now, right?"

"You'd be surprised." Naruto muttered.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. Sure, this training ground's pretty big, mind if I move my operation here?"

"Your... what?"

"My training operation, you'll see." Naruto made a Shadow clone and sent it off to his own training grounds to get his clones to dispel except those with books, who would walk to where he was now, and take the book on sealing to Tsunade.

"There we go!" Naruto waited for a few minutes and braced himself. True enough when all his clones dispelled he was hit with days of information all at once. He calmed himself and tried not to think about any of it, just let it settle in.

"Naruto, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just dispelled a load of clones, give me a minute."

"What do you mean, why would that give you a headache?"

"I've had them training most of the day, so I just got a lot of information."

"Information? Huh? Why would you have clones train?" Ino asked.

"I get their memories, if they want me to get them."

Ino's eyes widened. "No way... you must be super strong by now..."

Naruto shook his head, clearing out the last cobwebs. He blinked a few times before focusing on Ino. "I only found out recently that I could do this with them. Still better late than never."

"Yeah, I guess. Wow, talk about missed opportunities, I remember you could make loads of them when we were younger, how many can you make now?"

Naruto thought about it for a moment. "On my own, somewhere over five hundred." Ino's eyes bugged out. "Of course they don't have much Chakra to play with at that number, and it takes my own a lot longer to return if I have that many out. If I... uh... use help." Naruto pointed to his stomach. "I'm not sure what my limit is. But they come out a bit, um, wild... when I do that, so for training I just use my own."

"Right, so um, how are we going to train together if you're doing all that?"

"Oh don't worry, I'll just send them into the forrest over there to practice, we can fight a few if you want, or I can try to teach you something, though I don't really know that many techniques."

"How about the Shadow Clone?" Ino asked eagerly.

Naruto scratched his head awkwardly. "I dunno, I think I have to ask permission, it's a forbidden technique, I think because of the Chakra requirements. Gr... Lady Tsunade can make like fifty apparently, and maintaining them drains her Chakra, so I'm not sure if it would be a good idea." Ino nodded sadly. "Want me to ask for you?"

"Yeah, please." Naruto made a clone and sent it off to the Fire Shadow Tower.

"Right, let's get this show on the road." Naruto kept his hands together and focused, suddenly the area was filled with copies of Naruto, a sea of orange and blond peppered with black stripes.

"Wow..." Ino looked around in awe.

The army of Naruto's ran off into the forest away from the rest of Team Ten, a few clones stayed behind, looking intently at Ino. "Right, you spar them, as many at a time as you want, so I can see what your fighting style is like, I'm gonna stretch and warm up, okay?"

Ino nodded, focusing on the clones. Naruto suddenly had a thought however. "Wait, hold up."

"What?"

"Your clan technique, the mind thing, you put your mind in a target, right?" Ino nodded. "I think it would be a _very_ bad idea if you ever used that on me." Ino's eyes widened and she nodded slowly. "Also, if a clones memories transfer to me when it dispels, you might go with them, so I think it would be best to avoid anything like that on them as well."

"Alright, I'm glad you thought of that. I'd rather not..." Ino's eyes glanced to Naruto's stomach. "You know."

"Yeah, trust me, I do." Naruto walked to the side and began stretching, so Ino turned to face the group of clones left with her.

"Right." Ino took out a knife. "One at a time to start with I think."

Ino remembered Naruto's sloppy fighting technique from the Academy and her few missions with him when they were younger but she expected he would have improved a lot since then. She wasn't wrong, for the most part.

The clone that attacked moved a lot faster than her, though not faster than she could deal with, Naruto obviously hadn't done any training specifically towards his running speed.

When the clone reached her it went for a punch, obviously expecting her to retaliate with the knife, so being guarded. His form was a lot better than she remembered, but he was still sloppy. Ino brushed the punch aside and slashed for the clones torso, expecting to score a killing strike. She blocked Naruto's other arm with hers but his knee came up at the last second, catching her wrist just before she struck.

Frustrated she Adhered herself to the floor and flowed Chakra into her muscles, something she had become proficient with, she shoved but the clone barely budged. Annoyed she retreated for a moment and analysed her opponent.

"Damn, you're a lot stronger than you look."

Ino smirked. "I have excellent Chakra control, so I can improve my strength a lot."

The clone looked confused. "What do you mean improve your strength?"

Ino paused, stunned and hoping he had just misunderstood. "I mean flowing Chakra through my muscles and bones, making them stronger."

"Wow! You can do that?"

Ino's eyes widened. "You mean... you weren't doing that?" The clone shook his head. "And you were still stronger than me?!"

The clone shrugged. "The Original is stronger, clones don't really have muscles as such... Say could you teach me to do that?"

"Ino smirked. Depends what you teach me."

"Fair enough." With that the clone charged again. This time Ino knew she couldn't take him head on but she also knew she had superior technique to him and that their close range speed was about the same. The clone came in with a low kick, Ino siezed the opportunity, gauged its momentum and hopped over its extended leg. She planted her foot in its face before it even knew it was coming.

She turned to the group of clones. "Your technique needs work. How about two at a time?"

Two Narutos charged in and easily outmatched Ino with their seamless teamwork, but the point was to help Ino so they toned it down to an uphill struggle for the blond bombshell, forcing her to pull out all the stops to keep up and be that extra bit less predictable, more surprising, to take out a clone. Which was of course quickly replaced.

Naruto paused in his warm ups as he got the memory from the first clone Ino defeated. He was confident he could beat Ino in a melee fight because he wouldn't disperse when struck, meaning Ino would have less time to recover, whereas if he got a hit on her he predicted it would hurt a lot more.

What made him pause however was the memory of being mid-spin when suddenly a foot was in his face, or his clones face. That was a serious flaw in his abilities which he hadn't ever seen from top Ninja. Naruto made the assumption that they could use their Chakra sensing abilities to predict movements outside their vision, or some whacky bloodline ability.

Naruto couldn't rely on that however because he had far too much Chakra. It was like listening to whispers in the middle of an explosion, the minute ripples created by everyone elses Chakra in the environment were virtually silent compared to the roaring inferno that was his own Chakra, he could tell that there were people and vaguely where they were, but that was it.

Coming up empty on solutions Naruto decided to employ his newest solution to everything, throw a hundred or so clones at the problem. He decided to pair them up, one fighting blind and one fighting as quietly as possible, which wasn't so quiet on grass. They'd use taps rather than hits, so as to conserve themselves.

On spur of the moment Naruto made another ten clones and sent them to try and figure out some way of using Chakra to walk quietly on stuff.

After only ten minutes of fighting Ino was getting exhausted, she hadn't ever fought at full pace for so long before. She saw the extra Naruto clones run off and start doing weird things, some standing on the spot, staring at one of their feet as they moved it about. Most however pairing up and tapping each other. She disposed of one clone, noting with pride there weren't many left, and spoke to the remaining clone. "Say, what're you doing over there?" The clone jumped back from her before looking, though the others just looked.

The clones all shrugged, but the one she was fighting still was the one to answer. "Eh, dunno. Have to ask the original, maybe he figured something out or had an idea, or a clone had an idea... Only the original gets the memories you see."

Ino slowly wrapped her head around the confusing sentence and nodded. "Okay..."

The clone decided to get back on track. "You look exhausted... finish off this group then rest?"

Ino eyed the remaining ten or so clones with despair, completely sure she couldn't last that long. "Uh, I'm not sure I can..." She didn't get to finish her sentence as the clone plus one, were attacking.

Ino reconciled herself to being angry at Naruto after she woke up from passing out, but the clone shot that idea down. "Come on, you can't expect an enemy who's out to kill you to stop because you're tired."

Huffing and puffing, Ino protested. "But... you've got so much Chakra and stamina, it's... not fair."

The clone smiled. "Well be glad I'm on your side and make the most of it."

Ino grumbled to herself between breaths.

Not long later, the last clone dispersed and Ino fell to the ground instantly, heaving in great gulps of air.

Naruto, having moved on to some calisthenics, took note of this and was proud of her, but he was also a little disappointed. It was entertaining watching a fight he was in from the sidelines as well as experiencing it in flashes, it made working out on his own a lot more pleasurable.

As such, with Ino down for the count he decided to move on to the rest of her team, so he sent a clone over.

Chouji was munching some chips still, though he was sure the bag was a different colour. Asuma seemed to have gained a few levels in agitation and was powering through the last of his current cigarette. Shikamaru appeared to be asleep.

"Hey guys! Ino's uh, resting at the moment. Any of you want to spar? It's good exercise and good practice, you can make kill shots against clones without worries... so?"

Chouji looked at Naruto speculatively, as if considering the proposition. Shikamaru surprised Naruto by replying immediately. "Troublesome."

"Eh, what do you mean?"

"Ugh... you put far too much effort into all this, I'd rather look at clouds."

Naruto stared at Shikamaru for a while longer, he still looked as if he were asleep. "But you're a Ninja, right?" Shikamaru didn't respond. "You go into battles where people try to kill you..." Still nothing. "Well, a true Ninja should win his battles through preparation. Skills, abilities, traps, whatever, all preparation. The most prepared Ninja is most likely to win."

"Most likely?" Asuma enquired, rather impressed by Naruto's speech. "Yeah, if you don't diversify, cover all your weaknesses as well as working up your strengths, then you're more likely to get unlucky and fight someone less prepared, but who just happens to counter all your strengths, so your preparation is nullified." Naruto was thinking about his fight with Sasori, but also Sasori's thoughts on fighting Kakuzu. Also Sasori's thoughts on Uchiha Itachi's eyes.

"Like say an illusionist versus someone with the Sharingan, no chance."

Asuma immediately jumped to Kurenai's defence, even though Naruto didn't actually know she was an illusionist. "That's not entirely true, if skilled enough, an illusionist can overcome the Sharingan's illusion piercing abilities."

Naruto shrugged. "I guess, I'm no expert, but I bet the illusionist has to work so much harder than the Uchiha does, or Kakashi... Anyway, the Sharingan can't see through seals, or traps, if they're obscured by something. Lure them over a seal, boom, literally. Or a poison needle in the foot, bye bye." Naruto mocked an Uchiha falling over with his hands.

Asuma had to concede the point, he even thought about mentioning it to Kurenai, or perhaps sending her in Naruto's direction, let him take her ire.

"So, spar? Chouji? He looked expectantly at the boy, but Chouji seemed to have come to a decision. "Nah, not today Naruto."

Naruto slumped. "Ahh man, no wonder Ino complained, you guys are so boring." Then the clone was hit with inspiration. "How about you Smokestack?"

Immediately incensed, though not willing to show it, Asuma turned his head slowly to regard Naruto. "I'm in the middle of a Chess match, at the moment."

The clone snorted. "Pfft, you're losing. Besides a Ninja should always be prepared, you never know when you might be attacked."

"We're at home, you can't be on the defensive all the time." Asuma countered.

"Well, sort of, we are outside the walls. Easy pickings for a first-strike team."

"If they could defeat our ANBU patrols, I'm not sure what difference I'd make."

"You could run away if you were alert. Bah, you want to spar or what?"

Asuma smiled at getting on Naruto's nerves. "Sure, why not? You're right anyway Shikamaru always beats me in the end." He threw his stub to the floor and stepped on it before pulling out his trench knives.

The clones eyes widened at that. "Ah crap, you're a melee fighter, Jounin melee fighter. You're gonna mince us up, aren't you?" Asuma smiled. "I'm guessing what, four clones at a time? Replacements fast and constantly... hmm... I'm not so sure, We just used a load of Chakra on all those clones, takes a while to come back." The clone pointed to where the other clones were all practising different things, they couldn't see the Chakra control clones from where they were, but they were just walking on stuff with things attached to them.

Asuma deflated a little, having gotten himself pumped up to fight four Naruto's at once, wanting to show off a little, plus the prospect of getting in some good kill-shot practice was rare and welcome.

"Well, I could use some of the red stuff..." The clone pointedly didn't look at Shikamaru or Chouji. "The clones come out a bit more... wild, still good though. I'm sure you can handle it, up to you?"

Asuma grinned a little. "Sure, let's get wild!"

Shikamaru's one eye opened and looked briefly to where his teacher and Naruto were talking before it rolled in its socket and the eyelid closed. "Troublesome."

The clone dispelled and Naruto paused in his calisthenics for a few moments. He then grinned and formed the seal for the Shadow Clone. He paid extra care to suppress the fox's energies from leaking out as he channelled it into the technique. The air around him became a bit heavier with its malevolence but the effect didn't travel far, he hoped it wouldn't reach the boys. At least Ino would understand. Ino who was still collapsed on the floor.

Fifty clones appeared, bit by bit, around Naruto. They all jogged off at once towards Asuma, who was in the middle of the field, away from Ino, and apparently ready for battle.

He had another cigarette in his mouth and he sounded a little funny to Naruto as he talked around it. "Okay, how about we start at two, warm up a little?"

Two Naruto's grinned and charged in. Their attacks were coordinated but Asuma cheated, he dodged one and attacked the other, confident it would dispel before its own attack reached him, he was then free to attack the remaining clone.

"Hmm, you're a bit slow, need to work on your speed. Something like the Body Flicker technique would help you approach your targets, it's exceptionally hard to use as anything other than an entrance technique to a battle however." Asuma puffed a little on his cigarette. "How about four at a time?"

"Hold up, the Body Flicker? What's that? Will you teach me?"

"Sorry, same reason."

"Aha! I got a note off Lady Tsunade, it says you can teach me!"

Asuma groaned. "I could, but it would be disrespectful to Kakashi, he's been a comrade for a long time, I don't want to steal his student from him."

"What, why not? It doesn't matter! I mean, you're not mad at me teaching Ino are you?" The clone paused. "Are you?"

Asuma smiled. "No, it's fine."

"See! Besides, Kakashi's only ever taught me how to walk on walls, that's it! I've learnt more from enemies who I've killed than that. Please?" Naruto whined.

Asuma frowned. "I'm sorry, and if that is the case I have lost a lot of respect for Kakashi, but I'm afraid my answer is the same."

"Damn it!" Four Naruto's attacked then, with a lot more enthusiasm than before. It wasn't long before Asuma lengthened his blades with Wind Energy, surprising the clones and taking out a whole group in a flurish of swipes. He was immediately pressed by another four clones however, who were ready, it turned out to be more costly than helpful as it was hard to maintain and wasn't making his fight especially easier.

Even though Asuma ended up using no outward Chakra techniques, especially nothing requiring hand seals as the slightly feral Narutos kept him pressed too much for him to spare the time, he still defeated them all within five minutes.

Naruto was impressed, he stopped his calisthenics and ran over. "Wow, that was quick. No techniques either, though I bet you were enhancing your strength with your Chakra?"

"Yeah..." Asuma replied slowly.

"I still don't know how to do that, well I only found out it was possible earlier. Can you enhance speed too?"

Asuma nodded, a little shocked at Naruto's performance when considering the clones weren't enhancing themselves in any way and were in fact less physically capable than the original, though not by too much. "Yeah, it's the same thing, really. Keep your muscles tense to block, tense them fast for speed and power, use Chakra to reinforce the muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones."

Naruto nodded eagerly. "Right, right. What are tendons and ligaments?"

Asuma fought hard not to sigh in exasperation, knowing Naruto didn't deserve the mild degradation, it probably wasn't his fault. "They connect muscles to bones and bones to bones. Everything needs to be reinforced, if you miss one thing out it will buckle under the increased strain."

"Right got it! So do you just put Chakra there or flow it or mold it somehow or what?"

Asuma frowned. "We're stepping into teacher pupil territory here Naruto."

"Ah come on, I only need you to tell me, I can figure the rest out, please?!"

Asuma sighed and rubbed his forehead tiredly for a few moments. "Fine, I guess we can trade, give me another two hundred clones and we're even."

Naruto nodded eagerly. "Right! Trade, got it!" Naruto went to make the required Shadow Clones.

"Wow, let me explain first, save your Chakra maintaining the clones longer than necessary."

Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Lady Tsunade said that too, but It doesn't really cost anything, I mean my Chakra returns a bit slower but... Hey your call, so how do I do it?"

Asuma chose to think on that little tid bit of information later. "Okay, this requires control more than power. You have to create strands or layers of Chakra in everything. The more strands or layers, the more added strength. Your bones should also be coated in a strong layer, to absorb shocks."

Naruto nodded eagerly. "Right, got it. Wait, how did Fuzzy Brows become so strong that time by unleashing all that Chakra, in the preliminaries three years ago?"

Asuma remembered that battle well. "What he did was something very dangerous, he removed the bodies limitations, his muscles directly absorbed a great deal of Chakra, this allowed them to become stronger but the muscles tore themselves up even as he did it, that's what left him hospitalized for so long, not the attacks Gaara performed at the end, though those certainly didn't help."

Naruto nodded wide eyed. "Wow, so that's it. But wait, I heal fast, so do you think I could do it?"

Asuma shrugged. "Maybe, but unless you heal instantly, it would still disable you, but you'd be back up sooner. In a battle such a technique is a last ditch attack because you're completely defenceless once it's complete." Naruto nodded solemnly. Asuma then whispered. "Especially for you, you can't afford to be left defenceless, you have to at least have the option of escaping. It might be worth learning it for that, but then something like the Body Flicker is probably just as good, if not better."

"Wow, okay. Thanks. I'll get right on it!" Naruto made fifty clones, as he didn't really have the Energy left for more without becoming physically tired, they went off to the side of the field, a little away from the other group, and began practising. "Right, two hundred? Coming up." He then ever so carefully channelled the Fox's energies through his technique, bit by bit rather than all at once as he did with his own Energies. After a minute two hundred clones, give or take, stood around the two. Asuma smirked before disappearing, his image flickering momentarily with distortion, as if it were pulled from different sides, then he was gone.

Narutos, all of them, immediately began looking for him, though they all easily spotted him a few metres away from the pack in a ready stance.

The original immediately shouted. "A Thousand Clones for how you did that!"

Asuma smirked. "I'll think about it, I'm sure you have plenty to work on for now though."

"Screw plenty to work on, I wanna be able to do that! Two thousand!"

Asuma paled a little. 'Two thousand, are you kidding? It would take the majority of our Ninja forces to make that many Shadow Clones, though it is ridiculously Chakra expensive...' "No more trading today Naruto, now come on, five at a time." He took a drag from his cigarette then stubbed it out.

"Fine." Naruto waved his hand about airily and five of the group charged Asuma, Naruto made his way out of the huddle while grumbling. "Stupid no trading... stupid actually moving places, stupid walking, stupid disappear, all flickering, stupid..."

He made his way over to the side so he could see the progress of his clones against Asuma. He began doing a workout, using a transformed clone as a weight. It was less entertaining watching and experiencing the fight as he was losing it. He hadn't been at it long before a completely refreshed Ino came up behind him. "Damn, that was a good workout." She stood next to him and watched the fight with him. "Wow Teach is pretty good, huh?" Naruto nodded. "I've never really seen him in action, is he going full out?"

Naruto looked at her and grinned. He made a seal and suddenly there were six Narutos attacking Asuma. "Let's find out, huh?"

Asuma obviously noticed the change immediately, though there was little he could do about it at that point in time. It took more effort on his part, but he was able to keep pace with the six Narutos attacking him.

"Damn, he's still fine. I don't really want to push my luck... I'm still hopeful on getting him to teach me the body flicker."

"Teach you it? But he hasn't taught me! I'm his student!"

"Eh well, I could teach you..."

"But I was going to get you to teach me the Shadow Clone for the muscle enhancement, I can't think of anything else to trade."

"Ah too late, I managed to weedle out how to do that from Asuma."

"What?! Noo..." Ino despaired, collapsing to the floor in despondency. "It's not fair."

"Wow, don't worry, I'll... wait, I forgot, clone talked to Lady Tsunade, no Shadow Clone for you. But I'll still teach you other stuff if you like."

"What? Why can't I learn it? You learned it when you were like eleven!"

Naruto shrugged. "Apparently you don't have enough Chakra to use it both safely and effectively, you can do one or the other... hey don't glare, her words not mine. Besides, I could make like fifty even back then."

"What?! Fifty! But you said Lady Tsunade could make Fifty, now! She's the Fire Shadow!" She thumped the ground. "It's not fair."

Naruto's expression darkened slightly. "Trust me, it isn't. I'd rather have no Chakra at all than have paid the price I have to get so much."

Ino's head snapped around to stare at Naruto. "Oh god, I'm sorry!"

Naruto smiled and shrugged. "Don't worry, like you said, it's over now."

Ino nodded and smiled, jumping up from the floor. "Well, I'm ready to go home, think I need a shower. Want to come and have a 'session' ?" She paused and sniffed at Naruto. "Hey, you don't smell at all! That's so unfair!" She quickly rounded on Naruto. "Don't give me your sob story crap! You have luscious hair, perfect skin and you've been working out since we got here and you might as well smell of roses, it is NOT fair."

Naruto chuckled. "I've got a pretty sensitive nose you know..."

Ino rounded on him and whacked him. "That's a horrible thing to say!"

"Oww, dammit!" Naruto rubbed his head. "I was going to say you smell fresh."

"Eh? What does that mean?"

"I mean, you were obviously sparkly clean when you got here, you don't smell bad, just active." Naruto rolled his hand in the air, trying to think of what he meant. "It's natural, you know? I mean you smell like a person, and we're people. If you were a rose then..." Naruto's eyes widened and he covered his head. "I mean you're a beautiful flower don't hit me."

Ino giggled. "I get it, thanks, probably."

Naruto grinned. "Right, well, better dispel the clones."

"Why?" Ino asked.

"Eh? I can't really keep them up from long distance, I guess it's 'cause they need maintaining and sending Chakra further is harder. If they were just sat there doing nothing it'd be fine probably." With that he made a seal and braced himself. "I hate this bit..." Then the clones began disappearing ten at a time, energy being released across the field. "Ugh, my head..."

Ino quickly cottoned on, the massive information rush must've caused damage to his brain, if he didn't heal so quickly he probably would've damaged himself permanently by now.

Naruto was bent over slightly cradling his throbbing head when suddenly a cooling wave of relief washed over his entire head. His eyes closed in a flutter and he lost the will to control his muscles. He just flopped to the ground in a boneless heap, though he was woken from the trance as his head rebounded off the dirt. "Oww..." He looked up to see an amused Ino with green energy still emanating from her hand. "You can do Medical Techniques? And you can do _that_ with them?"

Ino nodded while giggling. "Stop laughing, more healing."

"Hehe, get up then,"

"Are you kidding? I'll just collapse again, come on. I'll trade you something for it."

Ino let out a long suffering sigh and knelt down, though she really didn't mind. It was good to use her skills to help someone, plus practice was always good. "You can't trade the Body Flicker since you don't know it yet."

Naruto merely mumbled, eyes shut as Ino smoothed her hand over his scalp, helping blood flow to where energy was needed to finalise the new memories, helping the old blood flow away, soothing damage and relieving any pain.

"How about teaching me the Shadow Clone?"

Naruto mumbled again, less coherently, eyes still shut. His hands looked like they were aiming for some sort of seal but they gave up and fell to the ground again. Ino didn't let up because she knew he wouldn't agree if she did, but he couldn't agree at the moment, so there was no point. As she worked she thought over what she knew of Naruto for something she could get him to teach her, but she came up blank.

When she was sure Naruto was done assimilating his memories she stopped the technique and sat back. "Aww, why'd you stop?"

"You're fine now."

"Yeah, but... so?"

"Come on, get up. We're going back to mine and on the way we're figuring out what you're going to teach me."

Naruto groaned and got up. "Fine, what kind of thing do you want to learn?"

"Hold on." Ino turned to where Asuma was. "I'm off now! Bye Master Asuma!" She turned to where the rest of her team was. "Bye lazy bums!" She turned back to Naruto. "Right where were we? Oh yes. The Shadow Clone."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Of course. Well I don't know any other clone techniques, so let's think of something else."

"Okay well, what other techniques do you know?"

"Um, summoning and the Rasengan."

"The Rasengan?" Ino asked, intrigued.

Since they were still in the training ground Naruto brought his hand up and formed a swirling chaotic sphere of his energies in his palm. The ball hummed with a mild intensity and saturated the air around them with Chakra.

"Wow, that's so cool!"

"Ah I can't really teach you this, it's Jiraiya's technique to give away, not mine. Besides, it requires a lot of energy."

Ino pouted. "Please?" Naruto shook his head. "Fine. Well, I'm guessing you can't just randomly let someone sign your summoning contract so... what else do you know?"

Naruto shrugged. "Maybe I can help with a weakness you have or a flaw in a technique or something?"

Ino thought about berating him for suggesting herself weak but she had overhead his speech to the rest of her team, even over the sound of her laboured breathing at the time. "Well, since I heard your speech earlier, I'm not going to tell you off for that... Hmm..." She put her finger to her lip as she thought. "Well, when I possess people, if I could hurt them while in control it would be great, but the damage carries over to my body, stupid link."

Naruto hummed, that was a pretty big weakness. "Well, you could poison them somehow." Ino nodded eagerly. "I don't know any techniques for making poison from Chakra." Ino deflated. "You could buy poison and make traps to set off on them or find a way of getting a poisoned weapon to them when you've got them."

Ino nodded appreciatively. "Yeah, those are good ideas, I might implement them if I get the chance, I'll think about it, but you're not teaching me anything here, really."

Naruto grumbled. "Fine, well I could teach you a storage seal."

"I know how to store things in seals."

"Aha! But I know one that doesn't need blood. You can put it on your body or something and fill it with weapons or poisons or whatever, if its poisoned maybe put it on a glove, but anyway, you just have to mold your energy a certain way to activate it."

"Wow, that's pretty good. I guess that's what you get for hanging around with a seal master like Jiraiya for so long!"

Naruto looked away. "Eh well, I found this out separately."

"Oh..."

"Anyway, want to learn? It's pretty useful so I think I should get more... whatever that thing you did to my head is called."

"I guess I can manage that, but you have to come to me. I'm not going out of my way to save you a self-inflicted headache." She joked.

"Bah, fine. I'll draw you the precursor seal and show you how to activate it. I'm still working on molding the Chakra to activate it at the moment, so I'll just have to describe how to do it."

"Hah, what good are you!?" Ino joked.

"Pah, even if I could do it, that's all I could've done for you anyway." Naruto defended.

"Oh calm down, I was only joking." Ino giggled.

"Oh..."

As they entered the Leaf Village itself Naruto's head shot round to one side and he peeref intently in one direction for a while. "What is it, Naruto?"

Naruto turned back to her a few moments later. "Nothing, must've imagined it. Come on."

"Okay."

---)(---

On a roof a few buildings away, a boy labeled Sai sighed in relief, his newest target was exceptionally hard to track undetected, not impossible but there had already been close calls.

---)(---

AN: I got a big message from someone unhappy about Naruto's approach to the deleted memories. I'll post my reply here so anyone else with that issue can read it.

Long story short, I didn't want to base my entire fic on bashing everyone and everything. I narrowed down the timing of all these traumas to near after the Kyuubi Attack, so only older characters are possibly implicated, or the faceless civilian mob.

Now, they are not a part of what makes him who he is because they've been permanently removed, even if he found out what happened, he wouldn't have the experience himself first hand.

Also, Tsunade is worried about him wanting to leave the village, because she's stuck there and he's the only reason she went back. So saying something like 'that's mature of you' isn't saying it's the only right option, but putting it above other right options, for her own benefit if not for his. (look underneath the underneath.)

Also, he hasn't really sworn to protect anyone, he was forced to and now that's gone and he's decided to stick around because he's got nowhere else to go that's as safe as the leaf.

Essentially he knows the truth, that the village did things to him that were bad enough to need sealing away, on top of mild brainwashing. I'm just making him more pragmatic about the whole thing, he's not good enough to go it alone yet and he knows it.

About the sipher memory seals. Sarutobi is dead and the one about the Leaf village more deleted overall ideas about the village being bad, so they never stuck. It wouldn't delete any specific memories because the village as a whole could never do something to him, only individuals, which weren't covered by the seal.


End file.
